


A Grim Odyssey

by BigFatNo



Series: The Elder Tales [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Elder Wand (Harry Potter), F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Horror, Mystery, The Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:42:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 148,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23720263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BigFatNo/pseuds/BigFatNo
Summary: Part 3 of 3 in the Elder Tales series. After killing Hermione and her unborn child, Harry Potter wanders, guilt-stricken, over moors, through mysterious forests, and in the underworld of Belfast. With a cursed wand strapped to his arm, and a Death Eater and corrupt Minister on his heels, he is left wondering if he will ever be able to find forgiveness and come back home.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Series: The Elder Tales [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1221728
Comments: 39
Kudos: 24





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Well then. After a very long time of writing, rewriting because i needed to change the location of a big part of this story, and endless editing and hoping to find a new beta... here it is. Part 3 of 3, the final part of the Elder Tales. It has been quite the experience to write it, and I hope you will find as much enjoyment in reading it as I have had writing it. I will be publishing this story over the next few months, with a chapter every Saturday and Wednesday.
> 
> In order to fully understand this story, I recommend you go back and read part 1 (Driving Miss Weasley) and part 2 (On the Woodway). But if you want to dive straight in to this story, then here is a summary of those two stories:
> 
> Auror Harry Potter is assigned to escort Ginny Weasley to her Quidditch match. They run into trouble, their romance rekindles, and Harry has to take possession of the Elder Wand again to save Ginny's life. Scared of the corrupting effect the Wand has on him, he hides it from everybody. Trouble looms for the new couple: mysterious murders take place, and Corban Yaxley, the last remaining fugitive Death Eater, re-emerges. Fear spreads and Kingsley Shacklebolt's Ministry hangs by a thread. It all comes to a head in the Forbidden Forest, where Harry accidentally hits Hermione with a curse. He runs away.
> 
> I would like to thank Inareskai first of all, who has been amazing enough to take time out of her busy life to beta this story. My thanks also go to Jenorama, who gave me plenty of wonderful ideas during our brainstorming sessions, and to moon_potato, who has been instrumental throughout the writing of this series. I can't thank these three enough for all the help they have given me over the years.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy this story!

Once upon a time there was man named Victor, who lived in the finest house in the forests surrounding Geneva. The mansion was made of plasterwork created by the most gifted Italian architects of the time and its ornamental woodwork was so rich in detail that one became dizzy just from looking at it. Surrounding the manor were luscious planned gardens, blooming cultivated patches with yams, sweet potatoes and dirigible plums, and crystal-clear mountain creeks, finely controlled and redirected into his many fountains and waterfalls. On quiet days, unicorns could be seen drinking from the water. And at the edge of the gardens began those rich forests, so abundant with game that hunts were always successful. Many considered Victor the luckiest man alive, and he was inclined to agree with that. Not because of his land, however, but because of his family.

He had a beautiful wife, Elizabeth, and together they had two daughters whose beauty surpassed any other maiden's. Their skin was white as snow, their cheeks rosy red, and their eyes blue as the sea. The younger was a prodigy in charmwork, but she could never muster up the patience to read books. The older could always be seen with a book in her hands, but she was never proficient with her wand. Neither looked down on the other, and their parents were equally proud of their children.

Victor loved experimenting with spells, so he had his servants convert one of the wings of his manor to a laboratory, where he could research the secrets of magic to his heart's content. There was a workbench for wand building, a small greenhouse for experimenting on plants, a large reinforced room for testing spells, and cages for pigs, chickens, and mice. Victor was in control of his life and land, and he was happy.

This is the setting where our story begins. I have written down the exact happenings to the best of my ability, as it was told to me by an anonymous source. I feel obliged to warn you, for this story is far from the pleasant fairy tales they make these days. I find that it is important to tell as much of this particular story as possible, so that you, the reader, are able to adequately understand the following series of tales. The precise workings of the Elder Wand remain clouded in shadows and mystery, and this book is an attempt firstly at understanding it and secondly at tracing its history to the most recent owners.

The diaries and letters that were given to me suggest that it happened when Victor went for his usual after-dinner walk with his wife. They ambled past the controlled creeks, careful not to disturb the unicorns drinking from the water, when he spotted a shadow moving just past the tree line. Then, slowly, a man appeared from the woods. His clothes were torn, his face was haggard, and his hair grew wildly in all directions.

"Stop!" Victor called, aiming his wand at the man. The unicorns, startled by the sudden exclamation, scattered into the forest. "Who are you, and how did you cross my magical boundaries?"

"Please," the man uttered, staggering closer to them. "They're after me, and I had nowhere else to go. You've got to help me!"

"He's raving mad!" Elizabeth whispered to him.

"Don't come any closer!" Victor warned. "Who is after you? Explain yourself!"

The man stumbled to a halt, barely three metres away from them, and Victor could see the panic in his blood-shot eyes.

"Dark… dark creatures," he panted. "Lethifolds. Inferi. Spiders as big as horses."

Elizabeth gasped and squeezed his hand tightly.

"Are they chasing you?" he asked in trepidation. Loath to take his eyes off the strange man, he glanced at the dark forest behind him, yet there was nothing there.

"Me?" the man shouted. "Are they chasing _me_? I'm nothing but a low-life drunkard. I never asked for any of this. No, it's not me they're after. It's this thing!" He stuck his hand in his robes and pulled out a wand.

" _Expelliarmus!"_ Victor cried, aiming his wand at the man. The spell connected, and the stranger's wand sailed through the air into Victor's hand.

Open-mouthed and wide-eyed, the man stared at his empty hand, then at the wand in Victor's hand. A look of horror crept on his face, morphing his features as he met Victor's eyes.

"You fool!" the man then cried, balling his fists. "You don't know what you've done!"

"Calm down, I'll give it back to you once we've sorted this out," Victor said, putting his newly acquired wand in his pocket. "But it's getting late. Come inside, I'll have my servants pour you a cup of chocolate and prepare a warm bed for you. I insist."

But the man stumbled backward, not once taking his eyes off the pocket where the wand now was. "Oh no. No, I'm not going inside. Trust me, get rid of that thing. Bury it, throw it down the river, anything. Bad things happen to those who use it."

"This wand?" Victor asked, taking it out of his pocket again to examine it, noting the strange knots on its surface. "What do you mean?"

But the man had already turned around, and the couple watched him as he stampeded back into the forest, as if the devil himself was chasing him. He would never be found again.

The wand, it turned out, was made of elder wood, and upon closer examination by Geneva's best wandmaker, Friedrich Krämer, it was found to contain the hair of a Thestral. Krämer could only conclude, wide-eyed and with trembling hands, that this was the Elder Wand, crafted by Death itself.

"Destroy this foul thing," the old man rumbled after that discovery. "This wretched wand will only bring death and misery to your family."

"But those are only stories," Victor replied, who had never believed in fairy tales and myths. He was a man of science, a man of Enlightened rationalism. Myth, he believed, was but a social construct that bogged the mind and made-murky Man's connection with his true rational self. It hailed from more barbaric times, from the dark pagan origins of civilisation and the Medieval ages that were so rife with barbary. Myth had no place in the philosophical utopia that would soon illuminate Europe.

"I can tell that no words will convince you," Krämer said. "So I ask you to leave my store and never return here again, not until you have rid yourself of that foul artefact."

"As you wish," Victor replied, bowing respectfully. "Farewell, Krämer."

I can only conclude from my extensive research that destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed poor Victor's utter and terrible destruction.

First, a moth infestation plagued the hedges of his gardens, and thousands of writhing caterpillars feasted on the box plants until there was nothing left of the neat edges of his flower beds. The second thing he should have seen as an omen was a fly bite he received during one of his many walks past the creeks. He thought nothing of it at first, but after three days the bite mark still hadn't gone away, and after a week the red mark on his left forearm had swollen to worrying proportions. Then came the fever, the headaches, and the seemingly endless fatigue. Elizabeth had brought in the best doctors and healers she could find, and they all concluded that whatever he had contracted must have come from that fly. But not one of them could find a cure. While waiting anxiously for any news from the doctors, he passed time casting spells with the Elder Wand.

It was volatile. Occasionally it burst with potency, causing his spells to have far too much power. More than one quill had been buried into the ceiling of the experimentation wing. Yet other times he had trouble even casting the simplest Levitation Charm. Gradually he found that Occlumency was the key to solve its highly changeable nature. Normally the practice served to protect the mind from intrusion, but Victor wrote on All Saint's Day, 1755, that forcing his mind to do the opposite – not to wall it in but to leave it bare for all outside influence to enter it – was the key to getting the wand to work.

During his bed-ridden periods, he stared at it as it lay next to him on the bedside table while he felt the burning sickness seep from the oozing, throbbing fly bite into every fibre of his body.

Then came one restless night, where Victor could no longer sleep peacefully. He was drenched in sweat as he tossed and turned until the first grey of the new morning was visible. The following month was a haze of nightmares, dizziness, near-constant muscle spasms, and strange, haunting hallucinations. He lost all track of time and place as he swam in white-hot agony.

During this time, Elizabeth rarely left his side. She had set up a chair next to his sick bed as she tried everything to heal him again. Their daughters had already married and moved in with their husbands and were far away in Zürich and Paris, and so there was not much else for her to do than sit by his side and pray that he would heal.

Both healers and Muggle doctors came and went. Victor had been given potion after potion, he'd been fed experimental medicine by a colonial British doctor, and in Elizabeth's desperation, she had even summoned the notorious practitioner of the black arts, Françoise Pelletier. The woman, accused of witchcraft but acquitted for lack of evidence, had dragged Victor's fever-racked and quickly emaciated body outside and performed strange rituals at one of the nearby water springs. But even that hadn't helped.

Victor's condition rapidly worsened, but one evening, when all hope seemed lost, a strange mist descended upon the garden. The door to the bedroom opened, tongues of fog rolled into the room, and out of the mist entered a man dressed in splendid red and white robes.

"Who are you?" Elizabeth whispered, standing to her feet at once and placing herself between the strange man and Victor.

"Worry not, I come in peace," the man replied. "Call me Mephistopheles. I have come to save your husband."

"The Devil has come to save his soul? You will forgive me if I'm somewhat vexed."

"I understand your sarcasm, my dear lady. You've sat by his side for so long, you've done so much, yet all in vain," Mephisto said, his brown eyes shining with empathy. "But I am not the Devil. Merely a... helper of sorts. I advise you to believe me, my lady, because I am the only hope you've got. His life is slipping away with every breath he takes. I can heal him, but time is not on our side."

"But why would the Devil want to save him?"

Mephisto took a long time to consider this. "My apologies, but there is not much that I'm allowed to say." He paused again, and grabbed the Elder Wand from the bedside table. "When Victor acquired this wand, his life became a more important matter to certain figures. He cannot die now. It is not allowed." He twirled the wand in his hand, and Elizabeth was sure that a smell of burning was spreading in the room. Faint tufts of smoke rose up from the wand spinning in Mephistopheles' hand. Then he carefully laid it back down, drawing back his hand as if he'd burnt it.

Elizabeth stared at the man dressed as schoolmaster for a long time as she weighed her options. Finally, she spoke. "What is your proposal? I know the way you do your business. Tit for tat. So speak."

"You are well read, my lady. You're right, my help won't be free. By preventing one death, another has to take his place. And the only suitable payment is the soul of the one he loves most dearly, of the person who his heart belongs to. What I require, lady Elizabeth is your soul."

"And what if I refuse?" she asked quickly.

"You don't want to refuse," he said with an easy smile. "I presume you want to keep the suffering to a minimum?"

"Of course I do!"

"Then you need but say the word, and I will heal him at once."

Elizabeth took a moment to look at Victor. His usually handsome features were marred by his grey, clammy skin and the visible bones underneath. He was dying. Every breath, every heartbeat, was one closer to his last. And at that point she knew that her decision was already made.

"How long do I have left?"

"Until I've completed the ritual. After it is done, I will take you with me and we will depart from this world."

"Then we have no time to waste."

* * *

Victor's body floated ahead of Mephisto and Elizabeth as they walked past the edge of the forest. They walked for what seemed like ages, deeper and deeper into the woods of the Jura, but Elizabeth could only think about the fact that this was the last thing she would ever do. She would never see her husband open his clear blue eyes again, nor would she have a chance to say goodbye to her daughters. But she drew strength from the fact that this would save her Victor. It was a purpose worth dying for ten times over.

They finally arrived at a field. In the middle stood an oak, immense in circumference, and its mighty branches spread out far from the trunk. She felt the power of this site, a soft humming in her ears that got louder as they approached the tree.

Mephisto lowered Victor onto a bed of moss and he turned to her.

"You'll forgive me for waiting so long before coming to your aid," he said. "We needed to collect a few more… artefacts first, for this ritual to work." And from his scholastic robes he drew two things: a silky cloak and a rough black stone. Elisabeth leant forward to look at the intriguing things more closely, but then he hid them again in his robes. "This doesn't concern you," he said, giving her a reassuring smile. "Be glad that they don't."

He looked away again. "First, we build a fire." He waved his arms, and fallen branches and twigs from all over the clearing flew towards them, landing in a neat pyramid-shaped heap next to Victor. With a snap of his fingers, the woodpile lit up, bathing the clearing in a dancing red light.

Next, he transfigured a small stick into a rope. He slung it over a thick branch close to the trunk, and climbed to the dense canopy. He pulled himself up on the branch, and then climbed further into the heart of the tree, until she could no longer see him. When he came down again, he was covered in leaves, sticks and dust.

He held out his hand to her, and in his outstretched hand she saw a simple acorn. "This is the reason why we are here," he said softly. "The heart of the oak. Hold it for now, my lady, but do not lose it." She took the acorn from him, hesitantly, and then slipped it into the pocket of her nightgown.

The helper of the Devil then transformed the rope into a large axe as he turned back to the tree. "Renewal of the wood, renewal of life," he murmured in a gravelly tone that did not belong to his normally smooth voice. He walked up to the tree, and began hacking away at it with powerful swings, repeating that mantra over and over again in a low, inhuman tone.

Elizabeth watched on as he cut through the bark, then the outer layers, and then the core. The red-hot light of the fire dancing around the clearing and Mephistopheles' repeated chanting lulled her into a trance as she witnessed the ritual.

With every swing of the axe he dug deeper into the trunk, and the humming in her ears got louder and louder, as did the groaning of the oak wood. Every swing of the axe reverberated around the field and shook her stomach. The humming became unbearable when he came close to felling the tree, and Elizabeth covered her ears, but it didn't stop the unearthly noise. Her very being vibrated along with it. The tree swayed back and forth, and it seemed as if the earth itself shook to its core. Then it gave way, and it was as if time slowed down as the giant finally fell. Wood snapped and broke violently, earth, leaves and rocks were thrown up in a cloud of dust as roots once anchoring the giant to the earth were pulled up to the surface, and Elizabeth sank to her knees, her eyes closed and ears covered. Birds, mice and other animals quickly scattered, running or flying away from the ungodly noise as the ancient oak collapsed to the ground with a thundering impact that made the earth shudder.

When the violence had passed, she hesitantly opened her eyes again. Mephisto waved his arms, and the many branches that were snapped off the tree levitated off the leafy ground. With a subtle wrist movement, they were gathered around the immense tree trunk.

"Renewal of wood, renewal of life," he called again in that unnaturally raspy tone. He aimed one hand at the fire near Elizabeth and Victor, and a tendril came loose, rising up above the other flames. Then, like an arrow, it shot at the twigs and branches leaning against the enormous trunk, and the pile of wood immediately caught fire. The flames reached around themselves and multiplied, grew and gradually spread to the entire gigantic tree.

The blaze continued all night, growing to monstrous proportions. The flames went so high that they seemed to reach the heavens above. The immense heat coming off the inferno singed Elizabeth's face, even though she and Victor were fairly far away from it. Mephisto never stepped away from the fire as he kindled it, spread it over the entire trunk, and made it grow even larger than it already was.

Somewhere in the ritual she must have fallen asleep, because when she opened her eyes, it was already late in the morning. She blearily looked around to get her bearings. Victor was still next to her, but he still looked as ill as he had before. The mossy ground under them was wet with dew, and the smell of burnt wood filled her nose.

They could now see the sky clearly, the morning illuminating the scene in a washed grey light. In the middle of the new clearing lay the burning husk of the ancient oak tree. There were still small fires here and there along its trunk, but a lot of the wood had already turned into a mountain of ash. The trees surrounding the clearing had apparently also caught fire; the only thing left of them were short, grey stumps.

Mephisto levitated the ash and spread it around on the forest floor, covering the entire area in the grey dust. She coughed when some of the clouds reached her and snuck into her throat. Mephisto then approached her, his hair, face and robes entirely covered in soot.

"Now it's time to plant the acorn," he said. His voice was raw from the ceaseless chanting.

Elizabeth stood up and gave it to him, coughing as more ash filled her throat. She then followed him to the centre of the clearing, soot being kicked up with every step they took. Mephisto carefully placed the acorn in the hole he had dug there.

"The old will give way to the new," he murmured. "It is done. From this acorn and the offering of the old oak, a new one will grow. The cycle of nature shall continue."

"What now?" Elizabeth asked after he'd covered the acorn in ash and dirt.

"Now we bring Victor back home."

Not a word was said on the way back, and she felt a strange distance between herself and the rest of the world. The song of the birds, the wind rushing through the trees, Victor – _her_ Victor – levitating grotesquely in front of them. Soon, she would no longer be a part of all this, but she felt as if she was already halfway there, only loosely tethered to the world around her.

She followed Mephisto through the garden and into their house. When he lowered Victor onto their bed, Elizabeth carefully tucked him in. She lovingly brushed a stray lock of hair from his face, which looked considerably healthier than it did before.

"I love you," she whispered in his ear. She kissed his warm, unresponsive lips, and then turned to Mephisto.

"I'm ready," she said in a voice that did not seem to belong to her. "Will he know what happened when he wakes up?"

"He knows what happened," he said softly. "He is lucid, floating between life and death. As soon as the new oak bursts to life, he will wake up in his own body again."

"Will he be all right?" she asked. Now that there was nothing more to do, the bravery she'd felt until now vanished like snow in the spring. The very same mist that preceded Mephisto now rolled back in to the garden and the bedroom.

"It is not up to us any longer," Mephisto said, his gaze warm and kind as he held out his hand, reassuring the frightened woman. He was kind and flattering until her very end. "Come, now. You don't have to be afraid."

They exited the room and disappeared into the mist.

As Mephistopheles promised, the sapling oak sprung up from its seed, nursed and fed by the ashes of its ancient predecessor, and Victor opened his eyes once again. Tears streamed down his face as he watched the tranquil fog slowly retreat back into the woods again, with it taking his wife away from him, forever.

* * *

Victor was never the same person again. His sickness had quickly disappeared, but the hole Elizabeth had left in his heart could never be healed. He remained alone in his mansion. The stucco slowly faded and crumbled from the walls, wood started to rot here and there, and his gardens slowly started to wither. The flower beds, patches, and gentle fields once again became part of the forests they were once claimed from, and his once carefully managed creeks rerouted and found quicker ways downstream, or silted shut.

Victor was rarely seen in public anymore. Even his dwindling group of servants often wouldn't see him for days at a time. He had nothing left to do but focus fully on the one thing that still gave him satisfaction: his experiments.

It had taken him a few months to get used to the Elder Wand, but once he did, he achieved results he previously wouldn't even dare dream of. With every other part of Victor's life cut off with surgical precision, there was now nothing left in the way of its path to greatness. The helper of the devil had made sure of that, with his charming gaze and helping hand, reaching out from the realm of immortality to this Earth just when Elizabeth had given up hope. Just when she was ripe for the plucking.

Victor produced shield charms as large and strong as elephants, even his most intricate transfigurations lasted for nearly an eternity, and he was able to create the strangest and most audacious spells. The days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, and the months into years. He hardly even thought of his old friends and family anymore. Every part of his brain was taken over by the Elder Wand.

But his old friends never stopped thinking about him, and one day his good friend Clerval had had enough. He walked the considerable distance from the city to Victor's mansion, knocked on the door, and was let inside by a weary-looking servant, whose eyes looked strangely void of emotion.

When Clerval found Victor in his experimentation wing, he took a step back in shock. This was not the tall, handsome and vivid man he had once known; this was a gaunt, pale, wasted figure. His hair had grown out of control, his clothes were smelly and smeared, and his arms had turned to thin, skeletal sticks. He sat hunched over the central table, breathing raspy breaths.

"Victor," Clerval said carefully, holding his hand near the wand holster on his hip. "It's me, Clerval."

Victor turned around, and Clerval took another step back as he met his sunken, uncannily glowing eyes, his veined and corrugated forehead, and his thin, blackened lips.

"Clerval, my old friend," he wheezed, standing up and with it showing how bad his hunchback had become. "Come, join me, I have much to tell you."

"What happened to you?" he asked, taking cautious steps toward the man, but reeling at the smell of pure death emanating from his friend's rotting mouth. "It's been ages since we've last seen you. We thought you'd died."

"Died? Hah! Parts of me died, my friend, but others have blossomed. Come, come look. Stay for a while, and I'll show you." He brushed loose scrolls, quills and other things Clerval hardly recognised off the table. Then he walked across to the far end of the room, opened one of the animal cages there and grabbed a chicken from within.

Clerval wrung his hands as Victor put the indignantly clucking animal on the central table and aimed his wand at it. He didn't recognise this wand. Victor's was smooth and light brown; this one was made of dark wood and had strange nubs along its length.

"Watch the chicken," Victor rasped. _"Imperio."_

The chicken, previously glancing around the room curiously, now stood perfectly still. Then Victor pointed that strange wand at the edge of the table, and it obediently made its way towards that point. He repeated the same for the other edges of the table, then made it jump through a conjured hoop and, as a finishing touch, ordered it back into its cage.

"See that?" Victor said, closing the cage door with a flick of his wand.

"You were controlling it?" Clerval asked.

"Precisely! This is what I've been working on all this time. I call it the Imperius Spell. I cast the spell, and the recipient enters a strange, lucid fog, where they are barely aware of their surroundings. The only thing they hear in their minds is what I tell them to do."

"I see," Clerval said, intrigued despite his worries about his old friend. "How did you ever find this out?"

Victor turned his head towards him, which visibly strained his malformed neck, and he grinned, baring his black and brown teeth. "Between you and me, my friend, all my success is down to this wand. It tells me what to do when I'm stuck, it guides me when I'm close, but not quite there yet, and it gives me so much power. I have done unbelievable things here, things I could never have done without it…"

"… Like creating your mind-controlling spell."

"Precisely!" Victor cried, accentuating it by pressing his finger down on the table. "I've penetrated deeper into the secrets of magic and nature than anyone has ever done before! Here, here, look at this." He veered up and made his way to one of the terraria standing in the dusty, withering windowsill. He brushed the cover aside with his wand, and scooped a stick-like creature out of the smudged glass case.

"A Bowtruckle," Victor calmly explained. The stick, previously motionless, unfolded itself and looked around curiously, reaching out with its thin, frail arms to hold onto the man's wrist. "Normally quite vicious when you try to separate them from the wand-tree they protect. But as you can see, this little creature here is completely docile." To prove it, he gently stroked its back with his index finger. "Because I have full control over its mind." He put it back in the case, and moved on to another terrarium, showing Clerval a black widow as it cartwheeled around its small habitat.

"Poisonous spiders under your complete control?" Clerval asked. "Have you registered the spell at the courts already?"

"Oh yes, I have. They're still debating whether to file it as a spell or as a curse, but it should be done any day now."

"What if someone with ill intentions learns the spell?"

That was the wrong thing to say, and Victor snapped his ugly head towards him, his mouth turned upside down into a sneer, his eyes glowing like those of Satan himself.

"Do you think I care about that? Do you think I am a damn coward? Do you think I would have ever come this far if I restrained myself by such spurious questions? How primitive would we still be if every inventor was called to a halt by their sense of morals? We'd still writhe around in caves and forests, wearing nothing but the hides of the animals we hunt! Or worse yet: we'd still be the maggoty slaves of our lords and kings! Ethics are for the weak, Clerval, they are for the slaves, the primitives, the heathens. But ambition? Ambition separates us visionaries from the common folk, from the dull, repetitive and oh so damned meaningless life that they live."

A deeply shaken Clerval was then let out by the same docile servant that had let him in. When he reached the edge of Victor's land and arrived at the dirt road leading to the city, he broke out into a panicked run and didn't stop until he had reached the safety of his home.

* * *

Victor's condition rapidly worsened, and as he relied more and more on his wand to stay sane, the opposite happened. His magical abilities declined steeply. Casting his Imperius Spell became harder and harder, as did other mundane tasks like eating and washing regularly.

He was of no use to the wand any further, and thus his life was at an end.

Tired and hungry, because he forgot more and more often to eat and drink, he stopped locking the cage doors. More and more animals escaped, the black widow included. A sharp bite in his neck was the end of Victor, and he slumped down in his chair, paralysed by the spider's venom; he was still alive, but unable to move.

The spider created a comfortable nest in a secluded corner of the wing, the chickens flew outside through one of the broken windows, and the Bowtruckles found their way back to the trees they once protected. But pigs are remarkably smart, and, more importantly, no picky eaters. Thus, they turned on the paralysed body of he who had once been their captor, who had once subjected them to the most degrading experiments. They feasted on his still-breathing form until nothing was left of him, and then broke free of the rotting experimentation wing.

The servants eventually managed to free themselves from Victor's spell, but by that time there was nothing left of their old master. Victor perished, just like every other mortal man. But the Elder Wand remained.

* * *

Ginny Weasley finished the last sentence and closed the book. She let out a tired breath as she absently stroked the worn leather binding of the collection of tales, called _Tracing the Elder Wand_. It had been written by the mysterious author Claudius Cuculiformus, just after the war had ended. _Just after Harry declared the truth of the Elder Wand in front of everyone in the Great Hall_ , she thought. That had probably been the author's inspiration for this book.

She wasn't sure whether it was meant to be taken seriously or not, but it was the first of its kind that she had come across.

When Harry disappeared, she immediately started her search for clues, answers, anything that could help. And that search had brought her here: the dusty attic of Grimmauld Place. Sitting cross-legged in the centre of the room, old books strewn around her on the floor, she wondered why no one had ever thought to clear out this part of the building. It was filled to the brim with old books, children's toys, and strange-looking heirlooms she didn't dare to touch. It seemed the perfect place to look for answers. She had started this morning, pulling random books that looked promising from their dusty shelves, burying herself in the tomes, absorbing their ancient knowledge. But although the books she found looked exceedingly old, like _Labyrinten_ by Jens Baggesen, or _An Account of Some of the Statues, Bas-Reliefs, Drawings, and Pictures in Italy_ by Jonathan Richardson, they were of no use to her, and she quickly cast them aside. And then this book had emerged from the pile.

She had last seen Harry barely a week ago, but so much had happened in the meantime that it felt like ages.

For a few days it seemed certain that Hermione would have a miscarriage. The Cutting Curse that Harry had cast on her had sliced deep into her belly, cutting through the wall of her womb. Ron didn't once leave her side in those agonizing days at St Mungo's, and Ginny had also been at her bedside more often than not. Ron needed his sister, she needed Ron, and Hermione needed them both.

Guilt. Guilt had bounced around them like a Quaffle among Chasers. Ron blamed himself for not noticing something was wrong with Harry. Teddy blamed himself for running away in the Forbidden Forest. And Ginny blamed herself as well; she'd known Harry was hiding something from her. In the beginning, she hadn't wanted to bring it up, afraid as she was to bring an end to the blissful summer they spent together. But as the summer drew to a close, their 'honeymoon period', as her fellow Chaser Olivia called it, drew to a close. The murders, Harry's nightmares, and his secrecy surrounding all of it had quickly blown that dreamlike feeling away. She supposed that the murder of Xenophilius Lovegood had been the point of no return. It was easy, far too easy, to pinpoint in retrospect the exact things that helped them on their way downward into the deep dark hole that they were in now, and then to chastise herself for not doing more.

What if she had simply called Harry out earlier? Demanded answers? What if she simply forced him to open up to her right after he had saved her from the Black Lake? Would it have come to this if she had?

She would never forget those hectic days. Ron had Apparated Hermione into the emergency room of St. Mungo's immediately, and in an unprecedented feat of magical healing, she had been placed in a suspended animation, slowing all her bodily functions down enough for the healers to stop the bleeding and mend the terrible damage Harry had wrought. Thankfully, both Hermione and the baby had stabilized and while they were still under observation, signs were looking good.

She shuddered to think what would have happened if Hermione had miscarried at the hands of Harry's curse. What would have come of the three friends, who had been through so much together? And what would have become of Harry himself? She thanked whoever was looking out for her that that scenario would merely remain a nightmare.

With the immediate crisis over, Ginny had decided it was time to start searching for Harry. But through the heartache of sleeping in an empty bed, waking up and facing every day alone, there was a vicious part of her that was trying to break out of her repressed unconsciousness, a part that really wanted to simply leave him to rot out there. At times when she was all alone, she was convinced that his running away was unforgivable, and she knew that Ron and Hermione shared that thought. Ron had repeatedly said so in his moments of frustration while he sat at Hermione's bedside. But other than those in-between moments, they didn't talk about it, and Ginny was glad that she had the chance to consider all this on her own.

 _The Elder Wand,_ Ginny thought. _How much had running away been Harry's decision, and how much had it been that wretched artefact telling him what to do?_ She didn't know yet which was the grimmest option, especially after reading the first bit of _Tracing the Elder Wand_.

In the end it was her brother who put an end to her fretting. It was at the end of a long visit to a sleeping Hermione and a bleary-eyed Ron. Just when she was about to stand up and leave, his voice stopped her.

"You're going to look for him, aren't you?"

He had known it before she did.

"What do you know? Maybe I never want to see the coward ever again," she said, perhaps more harshly than she intended. Ron didn't deserve it after the week he'd been through.

"I just wanted you to know that… you're not alone. We'll help you. Hermione and I. He needs us."

She stared at him as she tried to rein in the warbled mix of emotions rising up inside her. Relief, fear for Harry's condition, and the love she felt for her brother at that moment.

"I get to give him the first punch," she said. Her lip trembled, and they shared a shaky, watery smile before she turned around and practically ran out of the hospital.

And now it was the first of October, ten days after Harry disappeared. Autumn was quickly coming, turning the leaves brown, elongating the shadows over the small park just outside Grimmauld Place, and casting a chilling wind across the country. And Harry was out there, all alone, with the fugitive Death Eater Corban Yaxley probably right on his tail.

But the last thing she would do was sit on the side lines. The time of waiting was over. They had all been lulled into a false sense of security after the end of the war; with Kingsley as minister, and their side victorious, she and many others were sure that things would turn out well from here on out. But now, with Harry gone and Kingsley's ministry on the chopping block, times were changing once again. It was time to stand up.

She turned the page of _Tracing the Elder Wand_ and delved deeper into its mysteries.


	2. Chapter 1

_One year later_

Harry crawled under the small gap between the iron barred door and the cobblestone floor underneath it. Water dripped to the floor around him, and he heard rats skitter around in the dark corners of the nineteenth-century tunnel.

_Best not lie on the floor too long_ , he thought. The dank air he breathed in was so strong that the taste on his tongue made him nauseous. He crawled forward some more, and then pushed against the bars behind him, pressing himself forward until his bum was through as well. And for once he counted his blessings for being so skinny.

He pulled himself off the ground again and paused for a moment to listen for any sounds. But there was nothing, only the drops of water and the squeaks of the rats. So he set off, limping, pushing himself further through the half arched dark tunnel until he finally reached a solid iron door.

Hoping that Lydia was indeed correct to assume that the door was unlocked, he grabbed the cold, rusty doorknob with his functioning hand, and pulled. The door groaned as the decaying hinges turned for the first time in ages, and Harry's heartbeat quickened with excitement. But that excitement made way for apprehension as the sound of grinding iron echoed louder and louder through the silent tunnel.

And sure enough, he heard a door slam open far behind him, followed by angered shouts. He stepped across the threshold and leaned against the immense door, closing it slowly. And then he set off as fast as his abused body allowed, further into the tunnel, towards the stone stairs at the end. But his leg throbbed, his broken hand stung and his chest hurt when he breathed in too deeply.

" _Alohomora!"_ he heard behind him, followed by the iron door creaking open.

"There he is!" someone shouted, just as Harry reached the narrow staircase and shot up it. He reached the top and froze when he saw a policeman standing right next to him. But then he noticed the goofy smile on its plastic face, and he realized that it was just a mannequin for the tourists.

He ran on through the halls of the Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast. It was completely dark outside, and the only light came from fluorescent lamps running across the white painted ceiling, illuminating the yellow walls and red floor of the former prison.

_Left here,_ he repeated mentally after he ran past the first iron fence into a round central hall. He heard the commotion of his pursuers behind him, the sound of their footsteps on the tiles echoing through the complex that was still empty this early in the morning. Hiding was no option. A simple _Homenum Revelio_ and he would be caught. So he stuck to the plan, and wrenched open the back entrance door at the end of the short wing.

He was now outside, in the cold autumn morning. A firm breeze chilled him immediately as he ran across the courtyard to some building materials on the other side, piercing through his hoodie and jacket. His knee now protested with every step and his thick jeans were crusted with dirt and sweat, his left hand stung with pain as the cold wind blew past it. He was not running fast enough, he thought. A spell shot by him, and he chanced a look. Three men were already outside, and they were aiming their wands at him, wildly shooting spells as they stampeded across the courtyard. They would rather kill than capture him at this point, taking the oft-repeated motto of "once you're in, you're never getting out" to heart.

_Damn Damien to hell._

Harry climbed over the thin fence of the building site and turned a corner around a container just as a sickly purple spell whizzed through the place where he'd just been a second earlier. The courtyard was being renovated at the moment, which had given him and Lydia a perfect place to inconspicuously hide a broom in plain sight.

The pile of wood Lydia had mentioned to him was still there. He stopped next to it, allowing himself a few seconds to take a deep breath and ease the burning in his lungs. Then he kneeled on the floor and stuck his hand under the palette.

_Bingo_.

Originally he had planned to don his Invisibility Cloak immediately, but there was no time for that. He heard the fence behind him rattle, indicating that his pursuers were closing in fast. Praying that it would still take off, he mounted the old broom and pushed himself off the ground.

The broom worked. Barely. He felt it protest against the steep and quick ascent into the sky, and it was hard to steer the thing with only one functioning hand, but it held, and behind him he heard furious cries of the men who had chased him as he flew far away from them. Oh, it was like music in his ears. He pressed himself further against the shaft and sped up as his heart soared with joy. The cold wind rushed through his long hair and beard, through his clothes, and whistled in his ears.

Below him he saw the innumerable lights of the sleeping city of Belfast. The Muggles would never know of the drama that had taken place tonight, nor of the intense, rejuvenating joy that Harry felt in this moment of liberation. The tears that welled up as the intense, cold wind streamed past his face could just as well have been tears of joy as he finally flew once more.

* * *

The broom was at the end of its life, Harry felt. It bucked wildly in the air, losing power now and again, and occasionally ignoring Harry's steering and going the other way instead. He landed on top of a big warehouse in the southern suburbs, and the broom clattered to the ground. That was the last thing it ever did, as a crack appeared along the length of the splintering wood. It was no more use to him, and he left it there.

He then pulled his Invisibility Cloak from the inner pocket of his jacket and threw it over himself. He began searching for the Portkey that Lydia had planted on this roof yesterday, and quickly found it: an old shirt, drenched in the rain that had fallen during the day. He checked his watch; half past three, right on time. He bent over as far as his aching knee allowed and pressed a hand to the shirt. Immediately he felt the familiar sensation of a hook behind his navel, pulling him into a maelstrom of colours and raging wind… And then he landed behind a row of bushes at the docks. His knee immediately gave way, and he stifled an agonised shout as he sunk to the cold, wet ground.

"Get up, Potter," he mumbled into the dirt. "Can't stay here now, you're nearly there."

He bit his lip, if only to distract him from the flaming pain that he felt in seemingly every part of his body, and then chanced a look.

He had feared that his pursuers would have a few people on the lookout here, but that fear proved to be unfounded: the street looked completely abandoned. He pulled himself to his feet and emerged from the bushes. He slowly moved through the abandoned street, past empty containers and dilapidated warehouses, until he reached an enormous parking lot. At the other end, docked to the concrete shore, stood his destination: a ferry. His heart filled with relief at the sight of the enormous ship, and he stumbled towards it. The Muggle in the safety jacket who stood next to the entrance never saw him as he walked over the ramp and boarded the ship.

He really should have gone inside to find a first-aid kit somewhere, but he stayed outside on the deck, leaning over the white-painted iron railing, looking out over the parking lot that was illuminated by several tall spotlights.

But no one came. Minute after minute crept by, and he felt more anxious with every second that passed by as he stood there on the abandoned deck, but no one came.

"Where are you, Lydia?" he whispered.

When the fog horn sounded through the deadly silent night, indicating that the ship was about to leave, a wild desire rose up in him to get off the ship. He took his hands off the railing and turned towards the exit, but then came to his senses. He turned back to the ship, then to the ramp again, then to the ship. He repeated this once or twice, until the decision was taken out of his hands. The ramp folded up, the ship's engines roared louder and louder, and it slowly unattached itself from the dock. Harry desperately pulled on some of his unruly beard hairs as indecision and worry plagued him, but it was too late now. The ship went faster and faster, and quickly there was a large distance between him and the docks.

Lydia still wasn't there, and he knew now that she would not be coming.

He should have felt relief and liberation now that he was finally going back to England, but instead his heart felt heavier than a sack of stones. When he finally moved from his position on the deck, his hands and legs had become numb to the cold, and his joints popped when he moved them once again. His knee and hand burned with pain, and his tailbone felt funny when he walked. He needed to find a first-aid kit.

The other passengers, although there weren't many of them, had all gathered inside in the many lounge areas. Some had subdued conversations with each other, the rest was trying to catch some more sleep.

He knew that there were cabins with bathrooms on board, and so he followed the signs downstairs, deeper into the ship. On the way he took a first-aid kit from its hook on the wall, and downstairs he found an unoccupied, cramped cabin.

He stepped through the small doorway and shut the door behind him. There was not much room in here between the door to the bathroom on his left and the cupboards to his right. He awkwardly took off the Invisibility Cloak, slipped off his trainers, and stepped into the bathroom. The small mirror above the plastic sink gave him little overview on the state of his body, but what he saw did not inspire much hope. His long, brown-painted hair was matted and filthy, as was his beard, and his face was full of cuts and bruises. His left hand still had a vivid red footprint on it, and glass shards rained down onto the floor when he took off his hoodie and shirt.

He showered off the grime and dried blood, but he couldn't lose the foul taste he had in his mouth. Yet his reflection in the small mirror was much better after he'd cleaned himself and wrapped some bandage on his hand and knee. He dressed himself again, and when he stepped out of the bathroom, his eyes fell on the two beds at the far end of the cabin. That one glance was enough to make him painfully aware of the fact that he hadn't gotten any sleep that night. He took two steps across the small space, and fell down on the mattress, drifting off to sleep immediately.

* * *

The ship arrived in Merseyside late in the afternoon, and in the bustle of people getting off, he emerged from underneath the Invisibility Cloak again. He immediately noticed people giving him wary looks, and children stared at him before walking closer to their parents, tightly squeezing their much larger hands. He supposed they had every right to: he wore a hoodie that was far too large for him; his jeans were filthy and torn at the knees; and, more damning, he didn't look like he had work, school or appointments to go to, and that meant that he didn't fit in. Adding all that up, they concluded that by all accounts he was either a drug addict or homeless, possibly both.

But he couldn't stand the wary looks everyone seemed to be throwing at him.

He ate a soggy burger at a fast food joint near a bus station and evaluated his resources. He still had a few fivers left in his pocket. Not nearly enough to see him through, and he wondered how he was going to be able to get to London. With the money he had left, he wouldn't even be able to afford a bus ticket out of the city. Staying under his Invisibility Cloak wasn't an option either, looking at how packed the buses were. And simply not paying the fares only made him imagine a scenario where a guard caught him and asked him for his identification. And the Ministry was looking to arrest him, waiting for his name to be entered into the national police database… This horrifying thought eliminated fare-dodging as an option as well. He concluded, after that train of thought, that he had no other option than to walk.

His small remainder of change came in handy later in the evening, after a long day of walking south, when he came across a bed and breakfast next to the motorway. He pushed open the plain wooden gate and walked towards the farmhouse.

After ringing the bell twice, a woman showed up at the front door, and opened it ever so slightly.

"What do you want?" she asked, apprehension showing in the one eye that peeked through the gap between the door and the doorpost.

"I'd like to stay the night, please. I can pay." He held the money he had left out for her to see.

Her gaze flicked between his bruised face and the money in his hand.

"You'd better come in," she eventually said. "It's getting colder, best not to sleep outside."

"Thank you."

A few minutes later, he found himself seated in front of a warm fire with a steaming mug of tea in his hands. He stretched his tired legs out in front of him, drinking in the blessed heat. It had been a very cold night and day trudging through the suburbs and then the countryside.

"You going to tell me your name? Or where you're from? Or where you got those bruises?" the plump, greying woman asked him, sinking down in one of the sofas and resuming knitting a half-finished blanket.

"Name's Dudley," he said. "And I'm from Little Whinging. That's near London."

"Far away from home, then, aren't you?"

"You could say that."

"What brings you here, then, Dudley?"

"Long story."

"Well, it's only eight. 'n you're not the first wanderer to spend the night here. I doubt your story will shock me too much. So go on, then, what's it with you?"

"You won't tell it on?"

She gazed at him for a long time. Then her lips tightened. "I won't."

Without taking his eyes off the pleasantly cracking fire, he began to speak.

"My journey begins in the forest…" he began.

* * *

Images, terrible images haunted him as he fled through the Forbidden Forest. He followed small, mysterious paths that must be far, far older than him. He didn't stop to consider how and why they were made. They simply carried him away, and that was all that mattered. He stopped once at the bottom of the valley that he had disappeared in for a drink of water in a lake, but otherwise he stopped for nothing.

He didn't know how much time had passed before he finally found the edge of the woods. Once he finally emerged he was surprised at the lack of emotion in him when he came across a small hamlet wedged between two imposing mountaintops. There was one inn there, and the innkeeper informed him that he was the first outsider to sleep there in three years.

"Got lost in the Forbidden Forest, then?" the innkeeper asked him, his bald spot gleaming in the candlelight.

"Yeah."

"Yer not the first one, lad. Clean yerself up, we'll have a meal ready when yer done."

Harry mechanically cleaned himself up in the small, dark bathroom upstairs, scrubbing the grime, blood and leaves from his body, combing his wild hair and cleaning his glasses, all the while contemplating where to go from here. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't come up with anything. He tried putting himself in possible situations he could be find himself in, as one usually did when imagining the future, but in his mind he imagined nothing of the sort.

Instead, his thoughts were filled with a void, a chilling vision of absolute, infinite, solitary nothingness, and he felt an almost childish fear that made him yearn to curl up in bed, cover himself with thick blankets, and simply forget everything. Yet when he instead looked back at the past, an acidic feeling of shame rose up in his throat.

Harry found himself without past or future, and thus without his present self.

When he saw his pale, exhausted face in the mirror, he decided that the first thing he should do was change his appearance. Every witch and wizard in the country knew him, and that would surely get him in trouble at some point.

Sure enough, when the innkeeper's daughter slid a thick stew under his nose a while later, she cocked her head while staring at him.

"Ye look familiar," she said slowly. "What's yer name?"

"Oh, it's Dudley," Harry said quickly, brushing his hair in front of his scar. "Dudley Dursley."

"Dudley," she said thoughtfully. "Dad, d'ye know anyone named Dudley Dursley?"

The balding innkeeper appeared from the next room. "No, I don't think so. But ye do look familiar, lad. Where are ye from?"

"Little Whinging," Harry said. "That's near London."

"Awful long way from home, then?" he said. The compassion shining in his eyes made Harry want to cringe. "You can stay a few days if ye'd like. Ye look dead on yer feet."

"Thank you." He wanted to feel grateful, he really did. But he just felt cold.

He laid in his freshly made bed later that night, the first proper bed he'd slept in for quite some time. Sleep didn't come easy, and all the while he stared at the rough wooden walls and the moon shining in through his small window, wondering what exactly he had left behind in the forest.

He ended up staying at the inn for a few days, though he rarely left his room. But the longer he remained there, the more his shameful memories started to creep up on him. Eventually he thanked the innkeeper and his daughter, hoping that they could appreciate the made-up sincerity, and then headed south.

He walked for days, chased by the rapidly approaching autumn as he left the wild Scottish Highlands behind and entered the tidy English countryside.

Farmland, small towns, and yellow-and-brown coloured patches of woodland followed up on each other. The sounds were as monotonous as the sights he saw, with only traffic, crows and the wind breaking the silence of the small roads he followed.

The wind, especially, was always there, rushing over ploughed fields and rows of strong-smelling kale crops, and rolling paper along the empty streets he wandered as he passed through the villages.

Harry kept walking. Rain came and left, and then came right back again before he even noticed it had passed. Cars, scooters, buses sped by him, suspicious glances followed him, but none of them stopped to ask him where he came from, or where he was going. They left him all alone. His mind told him it was right this way: no questions, no answers, nothing that could remind him of what he had done. Yet his tongue ached to move, to speak, to spill the sharp ache in his chest over someone, anything to relieve his absolute loneliness. He was in turmoil, and the easiest thing to do in this moment, was to do nothing at all. As long as he kept his mind focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Left, right, left, right. On he went.

Not much happened on the first few days of his journey, or whatever he was supposed to call this. His jacket and jeans were torn in many places after his wild rampage through the Forbidden Forest. His red Auror robes hadn't even survived the first night, and he had left them behind when he started tripping over the loose strings of cotton too much. Perhaps he shouldn't have done that. Autumn was in full swing now, and a permanent chilling wind blew through his ragged clothes, freezing him to the bone. The rain didn't help matters either.

He would have preferred not to think about anything, but his stomach eventually protested too much. He had no money in his pocket, but what he did have was his Invisibility Cloak. Thus began, regretfully, Harry's career as a thief.

He couldn't bring himself to steal from the small bakeries he passed by, no matter how good the smell was that came from the shop entrances. Instead, he stuck to the Tesco's, the Sainsbury's, the McDonald's and other large Muggle chains that probably wouldn't miss a few rolls and bottles of water.

The endless farm pastures and crop fields slowly made way for a moor-dominated landscape. The few trees that he passed by now disappeared completely, and the cover of grass and immense fields of crops in straight rows, now turned into an uneven blanket of purple and brown heath plants. Roads became of worse quality, and eventually he simply turned off them, choosing to walk directly south instead of following their winding route, hoping that it would take him past this environment quicker. The wind, always present until now, now grew even stronger. There was nothing, except for a few lost willows and oak trees, to stop it, break it, lessen its constant torment on Harry's tired and famished body. He squeezed his eyes closed until they were only slits, and he walked on in hunched posture. It was all he could do to cope with the constant blustery storm.

For many hours, well into the afternoon, he passed not a single sign of life. The only exception was a herd of sheep he saw on the hills far in the distance. Later, far after he'd lost track of time, he finally saw something in the distance that stood out from the bare landscape: a house, standing lonely on the top of a hill. It appeared to him when he reached the top of a hill, and he changed his direction immediately, heading straight towards it, his spirits at last lifted at the prospect of finding shelter from the incessant wind.

Yet the closer he came to the house, which looked more like a mansion now, the more it seemed that there was something wrong with it. One of the windows looked smashed in, and he thought he saw a hole here and there in the roof where one or a few tiles were missing. His lifted spirits made way for apprehension. He climbed the hill on which the mansion stood and encountered a fence. The wrought iron was rusted in many places, some thick bars were even bent unnaturally, but he didn't know who or what could have done that.

He still saw no sign of life. Even the vegetation around the house, the many trees, hedges, and shrubbery, were quite bare. He supposed that it was already quite far along autumn, but there was something about the gardens that seemed odd to him. An oak that stood close to him looked downright ancient, with its immense, worn, twisted, and knotted stem. Its branches were bigger than most small trees and extended far from that enormous trunk. One of them reached out to him with its winding course, but from up close the bark looked sick. It was grey, even white in some places. He reached out above him to touch it.

The branch felt dry and course, and when he pushed, it became clear that the bark was entirely loose from the core underneath. It moved, and without applying the slightest bit of force, a part of it fell down, showering him in bark dust and splinters. He wiped his hand through his hair to remove it, but when he did so, he felt something move on his hand and scalp. It was the feeling of innumerable small legs creeping over him.

Horror spiked through him, and he bent over, racing both his hands over his head to remove whatever was crawling over him. On the ground underneath him, his face close to it as he stood bent over, landed a teeming mass of ants, beetles, spiders and a few centipedes. As soon as they landed in the grass, they dispersed, panicked at their sudden displacement. A panicked moan escaped Harry's throat as more crawling things landed on the back of his head and rolled down his neck and underneath his shirt.

He jumped away from his position under the branch and threw his shirt off him in a blinding frenzy and swiped at his head, neck and back until at last the feeling of the many creatures moving around on his skin was gone.

The panic passed slowly, until he stood still in the heath, his breath and heart racing, his skin rapidly cooling as it was exposed to the cold wind. He picked up his shirt from the ground and shook the branches and purple leaves off it before pulling it on again.

Now that he could think more clearly, his terror at what had just happened made way for morbid curiosity. He glanced at the place where he stood underneath the branch, and carefully approached it. Only the beetles and a few ants remained on the grass where they'd landed, the rest had already dispersed. When he looked up, he saw a hole in the sick bark, revealing hard wood underneath. The tree was dead, he realised, but underneath its exterior it teemed with life. In every crease, hole, and slit, something moved: small spiders, ants, even infinitesimally tiny black specks, all crept along the ancient, withered wood. It was a revolting, but at the same time hypnotising sight, as he gazed through the hole of the bark into that small, busy world.

His mind flickered between fascination and disgust, but eventually he looked away from the dead tree, and instead inspected the building itself, to see if it was a good idea to enter. But what he saw didn't fill him with much hope. Many of the windows were cracked or entirely broken, the wood columns running along the rough brickwork walls, looked like they were in the process of rotting, or already past that stage. And the roof looked equally circumspect in some areas: bent, with missing roof tiles. The house looked like a death-trap, and it was clear that no one had lived here for a considerable amount of time.

But it was getting dark quickly, unusually so. He looked up at the sky, and was shocked to see that the even grey clouds had made way for darker ones that swirled around in the sky, crashing into each other, reaching down from the sky with strange tendrils that disappeared as quickly as they formed, making way for other otherworldly shapes. The wind, which already was quite strong here, began to pick up as well.

Harry glanced one more time at the ramshackle mansion and made his decision. He set off and followed the iron fence around the property. Decay followed him, visible on the overgrown stone walls, the rusting fences and the wasted garden.

He turned a corner and came across the remains of what once was a road. It was only half visible, barely appearing from underneath the blanket of heath that had it taken over, and it led him, finally, to the main entrance, as the first drops of rain began to fall. He found himself on a gravel square, the ornate front end of the house towering over him, dominating the stormy evening sky.

The clearing itself was bordered what used to be hedges but the plants, which he recognised from their once tidy shapes customary for English estates, reached no higher than his hip. Instead of an even green leaf cover, they were marred by bald spots, where a maze of bare brown branches could be seen. He imagined that they were once neatly trimmed, with the same height and thickness. But these plants reached random heights, and didn't really have the rectangular shape anymore that they were supposed to have. And reaching underneath them, into the clearing, were the creeping fingers of the moor, purple and brown strings of heath plants snaking towards the still bare centre of the clearing, where he stood.

Apprehension filled him as he moved across the faded, mossy clearing, towards the main entrance, and he slowly climbed the short but steep stairs to the grand double doors.

They were made of sturdy wood, but the many years of harsh northern weather had had an impact on them. The wood was coloured, blotchy, and there were many holes made by woodworm. The knockers and doorknobs were rusted into a virtually unrecognisable state. The classical pillars on either side of the doorway were marred by missing stone chips here and there, and the white paint had faded away almost completely.

He swallowed, but with difficulty, as his throat had suddenly gone quite dry. Then he pushed the doors inside. The hinges protested loudly as they gave way. Echoes from inside reached his ears as the half-arched doors opened with much creaking and groaning, revealing total darkness.


	3. Chapter 2

Apprehension struck Harry as he was faced with the obscure darkness of the other side. Sounds came from there as well: dripping water, howling wind, and other sounds he didn't know or understand the source of. His breathing and heartrate quickened as he remained standing on the threshold. He peered into the darkness and, as his eyes slowly got used to the lack of light, parts of the interior became visible to him. Streams of grey light entered the house through the opened doors and smudged windows on either side of the doorway. High above him the wind whistled through holes in the roof.

He stepped into the house, half expecting something strange to occur; perhaps a person suddenly appearing, perhaps a magical trap being set off. But nothing happened. The howling wind travelled in through the opened doors behind him, echoing through the room, which was still mostly obscured from his sight, and raindrops flew in with it. He turned around, grabbed one door handle in each hand and closed the doors, the heavy impact of the wood as they shut echoing through the dark room.

It fell silent then, and in the absence of the wind rushing in his ears, other sounds grew in prominence: his quick breathing and his heartbeat, the whistling wind blowing past the house, through the holes in the roof far above him, and the creaking of old wooden beams all around him as the building endured the weather.

Harry stood close to the front door for a long time before he had the courage to take the first few steps further into the house. His nerves hadn't yet settled after that incident with the oak tree, and the total darkness combined with the evidence of decay around him did little to put him at ease. He swallowed as his throat suddenly felt dry, and he shuffled forward, his arms stretched out before him so that he wouldn't bump into anything.

His extended hands eventually came across a wall. The texture felt cold, dusty, and wooden. He moved to the side until the he felt a protruding edge, an incline, and then the coldness of an iron doorknob. He closed his hand around it and opened the door. It swung inwards, and a gust of cold, stale air brushed past his face, blowing dust onto his skin.

From the other room came a cold, grey light, revealing a rectangular living room, with a dining table and chairs to his left and – his heart jumped in joy – a fireplace with sofas. Light from outside came in from two large windows in the wall opposite him, and Harry approached the one nearest to him. The glass was covered in dust and filth, making it hard to look through it, but he could still see the moorland underneath black storm clouds that raced through the sky. Curtains of rain came down in several places, and far in the distance he saw the last rays of sun of the day, hidden behind the clouds, colouring the horizon blood red.

_It's not warm_ , Harry thought, _but at least I'm inside_.

He turned away from the window and approached the fireplace, placed in a dim corner of the living room. The stones making up the hearth were straight-cut. Next to it, above a basket with several logs in it, hung a poker, and above the fireplace was a shelf containing several picture frames. None of them stood upright, and as Harry's eyes grew more used to the absence of light here, he saw several more lying on the ground. Intrigued, he picked one of them up and turned it over to regard the picture itself, but it was too dark to make out the details of the grainy black-and white photo. He placed it back on the shelf and kneeled down to look at the fireplace itself. There were still several logs in there, laying on a bed of iron bars, burnt out and turned into coal and ash. Using the poker from the wall he pushed most of the old remains out of the way. Black dust rose up. Once the iron bars of the hearth were free from debris he placed some new logs in to form a small pile.

Now he had to light it, and as he was searching for matches around the fireplace, he stumbled upon a flower pot containing grey ash-like powder.

_Floo powder_ , he thought. This house must have belonged to a magical family, and considering the size and location of it, it had to have been a fairly rich family. Yet he didn't know from the top of his head any wealthy magical family that lived in the moors of Northumberland. But his present concern was that it meant that there probably weren't any matches or lighters in the house.

He kneeled back down in front of the fireplace, and hesitantly drew his wand from his pocket, for the first time since that fateful night in the Forbidden Forest. The feeling of the wooden stick in his hand brought back all the memories from the event that he had tried to repress ever since. Every excruciating detail came flooding back; the fear, the confusion, but most of all the overwhelming nausea of seeing Hermione collapse at his feet to the forest floor.

He clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, and clenched his wand in his hand, his nails digging into the palm of his hand.

" _Incendio!"_ he called, his voice feeble and shaking. The magic sparked to life inside him, built up, and travelled through his arm, into his wand, and the red-coloured spell shot at the logs, immediately setting them ablaze. He was keenly aware of every sensation that crept through his body, and as soon as the logs caught fire, a sudden burst of revulsion shot through him, like an electric shock, and his wand clattered through the floor.

He didn't stay there for long, reeling from the adverse reaction he'd had from casting magic; instead he swallowed, pocketed his wand, and got up again as the thought passed through him that he never, ever wanted to experience this anymore.

He tore himself out of his troubled introspection, and turned his attention instead to the photographs again, now that the fire provided him with enough light to inspect them. When he picked up the first one and regarded it, his suspicions on the magical nature of the family that lived here were proven right. He saw a man in long wizarding robes, so formal that they might as well have been a pastor's robes. He wore a stern expression, and hardly moved, if only to shift his weight from one foot to the other. From time to time he turned slightly to give the camera another variation of his stately posture. He stood in a garden, underneath an oak tree that was much broader than the man itself. The many leaves of the tree served as a canopy above him, and in the background, although the picture was old and faded, Harry could see the outline of the hilly moorland. He concluded that this must be the same oak tree he'd stood under earlier, only back when it was still full of life.

All other pictures were much the same: different members of the family, men and women, all dressed in formal clothes, posing in different parts of the garden outside the house, among the many vibrant flowers, bushes, and one or two next to a statue of a woman Harry recognised as Venus. The faces of the individuals bore resemblance to each other, and he was sure that he recognised them, but names eluded him.

He placed the last one, an elderly man who had his hand on the shoulder of the Venus statue, back down on the mantelpiece and turned to the sofas behind him. He approached one of them, to see if there weren't any surprises waiting for him between the cushions of the red velvet seat. He couldn't see anything suspicious, but just to be sure, he gave it a kick as well. It sounded hollow, and the loud noise sounded out of place in the dark, quiet living room. Dust rose up from the sofa, but nothing jumped out at him, and so he figured it safe enough to sit down.

Tiredness didn't wait long to make itself prominent after he'd sunk down into the dusty, but comfortable chair. His eyes slowly started to drift shut as he stared into the softly crackling fire. He chanced one last look into the room. Much of it was still shrouded in darkness, but the rug, cupboards, and walls near him were cast in the dancing red light of the fire, and his own shadow moving fluidly over the faded wallpaper. His eyes fell on the heavy wooden door that led back to the entranceway. It didn't move, but the groaning and creaking of the house around and above him did little to set his sleep-fogged mind at ease. When he looked back at the fire, he was keenly aware of the nigh emotionless faces of the family on the mantelpiece staring at him with disapproving gazes. He imagined the fire reflecting unnaturally in their black-and-white glittering eyes.

With the sighing house and raindrops flinging against the windows in the background, he sunk into a restless sleep.

* * *

It felt like only moments later when he opened his eyes again. He didn't know what exactly had woken him up, but his body suddenly alert: his heart thrummed, adrenaline coursed through his veins, and his senses picked up every small detail of his surroundings. The house was quiet, deathly quiet. The rain had stopped pelting the windows and the wooden skeleton of the house no longer creaked and moaned in the wind. The fireplace, previously crackling merrily, was now fully out. There was not a single flame, there were no glowing specks in the pile of ash and burnt-out wood, as if it had been out for more than a day already. But that should not be possible. He'd started the fire just earlier this night, and there still was absolutely no light coming in through the smudged windows. It felt like he'd only slept for a few hours. And even with the absence of light, he still could clearly see everything, as if he'd suddenly gained the power of seeing in the dark. Something was wrong.

He got up from the sofa and approached the fireplace, holding his hand close to the pile of wood, but there was no warmth emanating from it. Now the sense of uncanny increased, and his breathing quickened. He rose up and came face-to-face with the old pictures. Nothing had changed here at least. Although there was something strangely off about the way their eyes shone. Light was reflected in them, even though there was none here, and they seemed alive, as if they were moving only to follow his movements.

Harry turned to face the room. Perhaps there would be some clue there as to what was going on. But the chamber was silent, unmoving. Everything – the dining table and chairs, the tall wooden cupboards against the wall – stood in the right place. But there was a display case at the far end of the room that he hadn't seen before, with a painting hanging above it. That was new.

He approached it. The rug underneath his shoes silenced his footsteps. He moved past the imposing ornate door to the entrance hall, past the dining table and the chairs with oddly high backs and arrived at the corner that he'd missed when he first entered earlier this night, his eyes drawn to the ostentatious painting hanging there.

He saw a man, with long, curly black hair, sitting on a white horse that seemed far too large to be realistic. The man wore a red-gold suit and was pointing ahead what looked like a wand while he looked directly at the viewer, jumping out from the background of dispersing clouds. In the background Harry saw a mass of wooden ships in the sea, and on the beach was a congregation of men on foot and on horses. A plaque shined in the source-less light underneath, and as he bent over, facing it closer, he read: _William of Orange Landing at Brixham_.

Underneath the painting stood a case. It came no higher than his groin, and underneath the glass, laying on a soft layer of red velvet, was a very thick book. The cover was faded, the spine was in an old binding style, with golden letters that had lost their shine long ago, and the uneven edges of the paper were rough and yellowing.

He bent over to see what the title was, but the letters had faded too much for him to be able to read them. He placed his hands at the sides of the case, and tried to pull the cover open, but it was locked.

He was about to bend over to see if he could find a lock, when he was startled by loud noise behind him. He spun around and the door flung open. A man he didn't recognise strode in, his face like thunder, his eyes pointed straight at Harry.

But before he could react, or even process what had just happened, the man turned to his right and walked towards the fireplace. A second man then entered at a more leisurely pace, wearing a thick, brown coat that came to his knees, with a neat blazer and shirt underneath. The attire of the first man, however, looked to Harry quite unusual. He was wearing an absurdly wide white shirt and tight red pantaloons. Their size contrasted sharply. He also had a blue waistcoat slung over his arm, and when they came to a stop he pulled it on with jerky movements.

"What is the meaning of all this?" he demanded.

"Of what?" the second man replied, crossing his arms.

"Don't play coy with me, Yaxley," he said, his fists clenched. "Married to my daughter, are you? Not once have you shown even a hint of affection towards her, not once have you asked for my permission! Who even let this farce happen in the first place? This is unlawful and you know it!"

Harry regarded the other man with wide eyes. _Yaxley_?

"I know the right people," the other man replied, having hardly moved during the tirade. "I don't know why you're so angry with me, Earnshaw. With this marriage, your daughter is set for life. Moreover, she will still be living here, in her ancestral home."

"This house is mine, damn you!" Earnshaw snarled, taking a few threatening steps towards the man named Yaxley. "And that farce of a marriage will not hold up. You may have taken my daughter away from me, but you will not touch my land!"

Harry's racing mind considered question after question as the two men quarrelled. Who were they? What is their fight about? Why is one of them called Yaxley? But what gripped him more than the others, was the question why all this felt so real.

Curiosity burning in him, he stepped forward and waved his hand in front of the man named Yaxley. He did not blink, look around at Harry, or indeed move at all.

He had experienced this a few times before. Once in Riddle's diary, and a few times in Dumbledore's Pensieve. He must be experiencing a memory. But how? And why?

"And what makes you think you can stop me?" Yaxley said, his posture at ease as he leaned against the nearby closet. "You're the only surviving man of your family, and the only child you've sired is now mine. Your house is falling into disrepair because your funds are not what they used to be…" He stopped leaning again and stepped closer to Earnshaw, whose challenging expression showed a flicker of uncertainty. "This world has no place for old men like you anymore. It's the self-made money that rules the world now. You were born in the wrong age, my friend. You're eclipsed, you're obsolete…" Another step forward, and the next words that Yaxley spoke were whispered. Harry approached the pair to hear what they were saying. "… And your wife agrees with me. She regrets marrying a cuckold like you, you know."

Earnshaw's uncertain expression made way in the blink of an eye for thundering rage. He flew at Yaxley. But before he could even attempt to strike the man, he froze. One of Yaxley's arms slipped underneath the man's armpits, the other was hidden from Harry's view.

Earnshaw then made a strange gurgling sound. Harry's breath halted in his throat, and as he looked in the man's shocked, unbelieving eyes, he saw that his pupils were impossibly wide with fear and pain.

Yaxley brought his mouth close to the man's ear and whispered something that Harry couldn't hear. The man's eyes drifted shut, then, and Yaxley let his lifeless corpse sink to the carpeted floor. A knife in Yaxley's right hand flickered in the light, a layer of blood clinging to the steel. He regarded it with an absent expression, then he fished a handkerchief from one of his pockets and wiped it clean.

And while Harry stood frozen, staring with shock at the things he saw play out not five feet before him, Yaxley kneeled and bent over Earnshaw's lifeless corpse. He extended a hand, and stroked the stab wound in his engorged stomach. The blood, which had been excreting from the wound, now receded, disappeared from the white shirt he wore under his waistcoat, and when Yaxley lifted his hand from the place where his knife had penetrated, there was no more wound to be seen, not even a hint of damage in the cloth of the shirt. He then got up and fluttered his hand as if he'd just burnt it. With no more word spoken, he turned away and left the room again, leaving Harry alone with the corpse lying stretched out on the carpet. Absolute silence reigned in the room, and the longer Harry remained standing there, staring at his dead companion, the less he could handle the unease that permeated in everything of the scene: the odd light, the deathly silence, and the man laying at his feet, whose skin slowly turned sallow and pale.

And yet at the same time, he was intrigued by all this, how different everything was, and how he seemed ethereal in all this, invisible to the others. He turned away from the corpse, and, teetering on the edge between nausea and fascination, he walked into the entrance hall, through the same door that the man called Yaxley had disappeared through earlier.

But it was far from silent here. Harry could see how the entrance hall looked now, with the source-less light permeating here as well, but before he could take in the wooden walls and white marble floor, he saw two persons rush past him and move up the stairs. One of them was a man with straight black hair that came to his shoulders, the other a skinny boy in simple white robes, almost as tall as the other man, but much thinner in stature. The black-haired man had placed one of his thick hands on his back. One of the boy's trembling hands lightly traced the ornate rails.

"Master Yaxley…" the boy began, but he closed his eyes again when the man placed a kiss on the side of his throat.

"Hush now," the man named Yaxley said. And on inspection, Harry thought that he looked much like the other Yaxley he'd just seen in the living room, only his hair was a bit longer. This must be a different memory, and judging by their black coats, it must be an entirely different era as well. "Mistress Annabelle won't be coming home until tomorrow. No one will notice." They halted on the top step, and Yaxley turned to the quivering boy. "Come now, Edgar. Stop trembling," he said, stroking his blond hair. "You're mine tonight, and I won't harm you. I always treat my servants well, and you know this."

Harry's heart started beating quicker at the exchange. It was plain to see where this would lead to. The two men set off once more and disappeared into one of the bedrooms adjacent to the top hall, and Harry, his thoughts shooting by at a quicker pace than usual, followed them upstairs.

As he ascended the marble steps, the sounds emanating from the room where the two men were in became louder. The palms of Harry's hands started sweating as he heard muffled moans, creaking floorboards, and the soft sound of clothes sliding off naked skin…

Yet before he could place his hand on the doorknob and push the door open to see what was happening behind it, he heard a loud crashing sound downstairs that violently disturbed the quiet anticipation in the house. Harry froze, then spun around to see the door hanging off its hinges. Red-robed wizards poured into the entrance hall.

He had entered yet another memory, and a much more recent one at that.

"Spread out!" one of them snarled. "Abraham Yaxley! We know you're here! Show yourself! You're under arrest, by the order of Bartemius Crouch."

Harry jumped in shock when a door slammed open right behind him, and someone stormed out onto the top hall. He turned around to see a man who had a shocking similarity to the Yaxley Harry was familiar with. Only this man had shorter hair. His face was contorted in fury as he regarded the Aurors below, who had all raised their wand at the new entrance onto the scene.

"What is the meaning of this?" he roared, his voice raw. "What gives you the right to break and enter my house in the dead of night?!"

"Drop the act, Yaxley," one of the Aurors replied in a loud voice. "We know you're a Death Eater! Come downstairs with your hands raised and we can handle this quickly without damaging anything."

But Abraham Yaxley didn't do that, and instead he drew his wand, brandishing it so that all the Aurors downstairs could see it clearly. Harry saw the tension ripple through the crowd of red-robed wizards.

"I will do no such thing!" Yaxley declared. "If you think you can come in here unlawfully and order Abraham Yaxley around on his own property, then you are sorely mistaken!"

"Oh, cut the pride and property, you great buffoon," one of the Aurors said, stepping forward from the crowd towards the base of the stairway. Harry recognised this one vaguely as a very young Auror Gawain Robards. "It doesn't belong in this time anymore, old man. The Ministry runs the show now, not the Lords. Come downstairs, and we'll make your arrest quick and painless."

Harry, standing next to Yaxley, saw how the man trembled with rage.

"Never in my life," he seethed, his deep, gravelly voice barely restrained, "have I seen such an egregious scene like this from you Ministry folk. You dare desecrate my authority? Here, in the halls of my ancestral home?" His hand clenched around his wand until his knuckles went white. Dread rose up in Harry.

"We desecrate whatever we want, Yaxley, by the right that we have as executive power," Robards replied. "But enough of this chattering. Williamson, Shacklebolt… Seize him!"

Two men, one of which a young version of Kingsley Shacklebolt, stepped forward, wands extended towards the imposing figure of Abraham Yaxley, but he merely waved his wand in a grand arc, and the two Aurors were flung back as if they were merely flies.

The gesture was the trigger that cut through the restrained tension in the hall, and Yaxley had to duck away as a wave of spellfire was shot his way. The barrage was strong, stronger than the building itself, and Harry saw wood splinter before his wide-open eyes as the intensely bright spells tore through the railing and wooden walls. And it didn't stop. The whole hallway was lit in an unnatural bright light, emphasising every little detail of the walls, the rubble-covered stairway, and the menacing faces of the Aurors below. He saw the grim determination set in their faces as they sent spell after spell at the man at the top of the stairs, who had stopped moving long ago already. And the power of the scene playing out seemed to break out of the very bonds of time, as Harry felt the heat emanating from the spells on his face and hands, and the wind that they had stirred up long ago even now swept past him, stirring his hair and beard.

Finally, the flickering lightning of the barrage dimmed more and more, and then haltingly came to a stop. The last few splinters of wood and bits of marble settled on the ground. Silence remained.

A conversation too quiet for Harry to hear played out below, and after a few seconds, a few Aurors climbed the battered stairs to approach the still body of Yaxley. Harry stepped forward as well and watched on behind them as they kneeled and turned the body on its back. They were greeted with Abraham Yaxley's unmoving face. His eyes were closed, and a trickle of blood running from his nostril contrasted sharply with the pale skin. One of the Aurors pressed two fingers against the man's neck, and held them there for a while.

"Dead," he then announced, his voice devoid of emotion.

"He's dead!" the other repeated to the other Aurors downstairs.

"Check his arm, take his wand, and then let's clean up around here," Robards replied.

The Aurors inspecting Yaxley's body took off the gold cufflink on the man's left arm, and yanked the sleeve up the arm. But where there should have been a Dark Mark, they only encountered more pale skin. They exposed more and more arm until they reached his elbow, but there was nothing there.

Harry heard them mutter under their breath.

"Boss?" one of them called, the unease plain to hear. "You'd better come up here."

Robards grunted and climbed the stairs quickly.

"What is it?" he asked, coming to a halt next to Harry.

"Look at his arm."

Robards didn't react immediately when he came face-to-face with the lack of the Dark Mark.

"Maybe intel wasn't good enough," one of the Aurors suggested in a faint tone.

"Clearly not, or else we wouldn't be here in the first place," Robards growled. "And not all allies to He Who Must Not Be Named have the Dark Mark, Smith, and you'd do well to keep that in mind. Anyway, Crouch's orders were simple: arrest the man or kill him if he resists. We–"

The sound of a door opening interrupted their hushed conversation, and they, as well as Harry, turned quickly towards the source of the sound.

There, on the landing, stood a boy. He looked no older than ten years old, and his young face was bordered by long locks of black hair, much the same as his father's hair. But Harry's attention was solely drawn to his eyes. They widened with shock as he drank in the sight of his dead father and the ministerial red-robed Aurors crouched around the body, as the scene burned forever into his retina, and imprinted upon his developing brain, never to leave that headspace again, fitting for the rest of his life between his conscious and unconscious brain…

Those eyes were the last thing that Harry saw of the scene. Tongues of mist materialised, and descended over the landing, the staircase, the Aurors, and the boy as well, and Harry's eyelids began to grow heavier and heavier as finally saw only fog-filled nothingness.

* * *

And then he woke up again. For a moment he didn't know where he was, but as he shifted his arms, he felt the soft fabric of the fireplace-facing sofa he'd fallen asleep in. He looked around to see the abandoned living room. Deadly quiet and unchanged as if nothing had happened.

Harry veered up, the dreams he'd woken up from still fresh in his mind, but quickly fading back to his subconscious memory. He approached the windows to see what time it was, but it was still pitch-black outside. Raindrops splattered against the glass, and the longer he was awake, the more he became aware of the wind rushing past the ancient stone walls, and the creaking of the wooden beams as the storm still raged overhead.

Harry turned away from the window to look around at the almost completely dark living room, and to the heavy wooden door at the other end of the space, almost expecting it to be flung open at any moment by someone or something. Even though the particular scenes of his dreams had now faded from his memory, the feeling of unease, of some unnatural presence within these walls, didn't recede. It was as if house had a consciousness of its own, and one that did not like intruders. And why was the Elder Wand, that touched the skin of his left forearm, so icy cold?

His heartbeat quickened, and his skin felt clammy. He didn't want to stay here any longer. Every creak of wood, every whistling sound of wind rushing in through the withering walls and window panes, made his skin crawl and sent shocks of alarm through his brain and spine.

His decision was made then, and he marched quickly towards the door, opening it after only a brief moment of hesitation.

There was nothing waiting for him in the equally dark entrance hall, but still he practically ran towards the front door, tearing it open. Despite the raindrops flying into the house, splashing his face as he stood there in the threshold, he stepped outside and slammed the heavy doors shut behind him.

It only took a brief moment of realisation for him to be fully aware of the stupidity of his decision.

_I'm in the middle of nowhere,_ he thought on that instance. _It's icy cold outside and I'm not dressed for it. Why do I do this to myself?_

But it was only a fleeting thought, one that got lost in the haze of his mind as he walked into the pouring rain.

_Maybe I deserve this_ , he thought then, as he felt the first drops of rain soak through his clothes and reach his skin underneath. And with those words, any logical thought was dismissed in a haze of numb acceptance. Simply walking on and shutting down his considerations was the easiest thing to do. And if he got lost and became nothing more than a spectre to haunt these moorlands, then so be it.

The weather did its hardest best to grant Harry that resigned self-destruction. Wind had free roam here, and it tore at him wildly from all directions, smashing rain and hail against him with furious strength.

He could not stop. He had no choice, because shelter was nowhere to be found. He could hardly see ahead of him with the curtains of rain whipping past him, taking up grotesque forms and then dispersing again as soon as they'd come. The wind howled in his ear, its tone was as if it were enraged or mourning about something, or perhaps both.

Feeling left his limbs, then his whole body, and eventually his last few thoughts stopped as well. All he could do was place one step in front of the other. Left, right. He felt no anger at his situation anymore, nor sadness. It was all blown away in the storm. Nothingness remained.

Two days later, Harry arrived in a small town, with clothes that had barely dried, a starved body and limbs that had become numb and cold. The hotel where he stayed never noticed him, and he was glad that no one had decided to sit on the couch in the lobby where he'd slept that night, under cover of the Invisibility Cloak.

* * *

"… And from then on it was just more of the same, until I arrived here," Harry finished. The fire had been reduced to glowing coals, and they'd gone through several mugs of hot tea in the meantime. The hostess, Meg, was currently on her third cigarette, and the air in the room had become thick and muffled with smoke.

"I… I see," she said softly. "So what brought you to Liverpool, then?"

"Oh… Nothing," he lied. "Just happened to cross through, that's all."

"Well, you've certainly picked the best time of year for that, that's for sure," she mumbled, putting the cigarette butt in the glass ashtray on the coffee table between them. "But it's getting late, and I can barely keep my eyes open." She leaned over in her chair to pat him on the shoulder. "You rest now. God knows you need it. Wherever it is that you've come from, and wherever it is that you're going, I don't know. But you're welcome here tonight. I'll wake you up for breakfast at eight. Good night, Dudley."

"Goodnight," he said. "And thank you." He stretched himself out on the sofa after she was gone, revelling in the luxuriating warmth of the living room. The smoke irritated his lungs, but compared to the dark, dreary cold, this was heaven. When he felt his eyes start to droop, he reluctantly picked himself up and went to bed.


	4. Chapter 3

More than a year. It had been more than a year since Harry had disappeared, and not a day went by in which Ginny did not feel the dull ache of his absence. It was especially bad on days like these, she thought, as she stood in the player tunnel of the Wigtown Wanderers Quidditch stadium. In a moment they would march out onto the muddy southwest Scottish pitch and play in the pouring rain. The sun had long since set. She missed Harry.

"Ready, girls?" Joan, their captain, roared.

"Yeah!" the players shouted back. It lifted her spirits a little, even though the weather was just as bad as she'd feared, and the rain poured down with abundance. She felt for Joan, who had to squelch all the way across the muddy pitch toward the centre, to shake her opponent's hand. At least Ginny could enter the pitch on her broom.

"Mind on the game, Ginny!" Olivia shouted at her. And she was right. She gripped her broom more tightly, and felt it tremble in excitement underneath her. The referee released the balls, and she shot forward to catch the Quaffle.

* * *

They were still giving each other high-fives and butt slaps even after getting dressed.

"Good work on that third goal," said Vivienne, one of the beaters. "How'd you get so much speed on the ball?"

"It was easy, really," Ginny said. "All I had to was imagine that the hoop was our esteemed fitness coach."

"Oh, I do that with the Bludger as well!"

"Great minds think alike," Olivia said, joining the discussion. "Ginny, do you want to join us for a couple drinks?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said, zipping up her coat and covering her hair and ears with a cap.

"Remember, it's Friday: Cocktail Night at the Man-Eating Mango," Olivia teased. "C'mon, Ginny, you've got to get out and live a little once in a while. It's been over a month since you last went with us!"

"No, I really can't," she apologized. "It's Hogsmeade weekend, and I'm meeting Teddy in the Three Broomsticks tomorrow. Can't have a hangover, can I?"

"Oh, right, I remember," Olivia said as they grabbed their sports bags. She patted her arm in sympathy. "But I'll rope you in next time! And tell Teddy I said hi, will you?"

"I will!"

They separated as Ginny Apparated to the front door of Grimmauld Place, and she quickly darted inside, into the dreary darkness of the former home of the Black family. She changed into a comfortable hoodie, dumped her sports clothes in the wash, and settled down with a mug of tea and the _Daily Prophet_ in front of the fire. She stared at the article on the front page titled _"Minister Castlereagh vows to clamp down on surge of violence!"_ that was accompanied with a picture of Lord Castlereagh in front of an audience, slamming his fist on the table, his frenzied energy palpable on his bearded face. The words didn't register with her. Besides, she'd already read the thing earlier today and she was in no mood whatsoever to re-read his homophobic remarks about his predecessors being _"weak-willed faggots"_ and all that.

She took one last glance at her watch, then quickly tied her red hair into a tail and made sure the hoodie covered it sufficiently. Then the newspaper briefly glowed, and with a quick tug she and the paper popped out of existence.

* * *

She appeared in a small, dark courtyard, and immediately saw the figure leaning against the white wall. She briefly glanced around. No one in sight. With wand drawn, she carefully approached the figure.

"The place where we met the first time?" she asked.

"The Hag's Heart," he stated. "What is my greatest wish?"

"That your wife will finally agree go to a Wigtown Wanderers match with you. We beat you soundly today, you know."

"And we're still at the top of the League. Try harder on your insults next time."

They lowered their wands as one.

"Good to see you again, Craig. Now what's this about –"

"Don't talk about that here!" Auror Craig Robertson hissed, glancing around the small parking lot behind the pub. "I've got a table already, let's go."

They entered The Bucket of Blood, and only then lowered their hoodies. Ginny's red hair was hardly noticeable among the Cornish crowd, and it was a typical Friday night in a pub. They would not be overheard in the crowded, noisy bar.

"You'd better explain what all these headlines are about," she said, setting down her glass as well.

"We all feared it would happen, basically," he said loudly, trying to speak over the clamour of the other pubgoers. "Castlereagh is making work of his new reign, and he's planned it to a tee. He's voted into office properly for barely a week, and already the Department of Magical Law Enforcement is looking at major reforms. Amelia Bones is not getting her seat at the top back, although I doubt she even wanted it after working for him during his interim period for the past year. She'll be replaced by a friend of Castlereagh, called Ulysses Auster. Unnoticeable Yes-Man, he is. He's just a placeholder for Castlereagh to do whatever he wants at the top. Proudfoot is no longer interim Head Auror either, and he's replaced by Gawain Robards of all people."

"Robards? That bastard?" she asked, gripping her beer glass tightly. "I didn't even know he was still alive!"

"He was sent to Strasbourg by Kingsley to be one of the heads of security in the ICW. It was the only way he could get rid of him to make way for Harry."

"They should have locked him up for what he had done during Voldemort's reign!" she said hotly. "Hell, the way he fucked about with the Auror Office after the war should be enough to never have him back!"

Craig spread his hands as if to say he was just as baffled as she was.

"Hermione's got to be careful as well," he continued. "Her ties to Kingsley are a thorn in the new Minister's eye, and he figures she's too competent and ambitious to just be kept on the side lines of Kingsley's plans. She might be getting the sack soon as well."

"I never thought it was possible for me to hate someone as much as I hated Umbridge," Ginny said, her jaw clenched. "The only positive thing about that is that if she does get fired, it'll save her and Ron on day-care costs for Rose. So what else? Got more bad news for me?"

"That's it, for now. Castlereagh is mainly focusing on reforming the DMLE so far, but it shouldn't be too long before he signs actual decrees. I know he's looking to reform the justice system to make sentences to Azkaban more common."

"Well, no one can blame him for being ineffective." She sighed and took a swig. "I think that's all I can bear on that front for now."

"We've gone through a lot worse not fifteen years ago," he said, smiling sadly.

"But now Kingsley is in Azkaban, and Harry is missing…"

"Which brings us to the actual reason for our visit," he finished.

Ginny emptied the rest of her glass with shaking hands.

"So?" she asked.

He set his glass back down on the table. "I'm sorry," he began. "I can't say that I've looked everywhere, but I damn well came close. Checked all the places you, Ron, and Hermione scoped out last year as well, just to be sure. I think we can conclude that he's not in Scotland anymore. I've asked innkeepers, shopkeepers, farmers, policemen, hospitals… Nothing, but except for one thing."

Ginny veered up in her seat.

"It's not as big as you think it is," he said before she could interrupt him. "An innkeeper at the southern edge of the Forbidden Forest had a guest stay over about a year ago, named 'Dudley Dursley.' Said he came from Little Whinging, near London."

"Harry…" she whispered. Then she stared at him. "But one year ago? He could be anywhere by now! That's–"

"Something," he interrupted her. "When Harry was still Head Auror, he would say that these are baby steps. There hasn't been a single sign of him until now, but this helps us. The innkeeper said he headed south, and – assuming that the Ministry records are correct – Harry didn't leave the country. So he's still in the country, and now we can also scratch out everything north of the Forbidden Forest."

"I suppose you're right. And we're assuming that he's even still alive."

"No news is good news," he said. "If he had died, we would know, definitely."

_There are worse fates than death, Craig_ , Ginny thought, her mind wandering to _The Elder Tales_ and the monstrous fates of the people who were ensnared by the Elder Wand. But that was not something Craig had to know.

"So what next?" she asked.

"I'm going to explore the roads there, ask people if they've seen something. We've got a start, now. Hopefully we can draw a lead from here to wherever he is now, and eventually catch up with him."

"And you're sure you're still up for this? I know you mentioned you had some arguments with your wife…"

"She doesn't necessarily agree with me, no, but she understands how important this is. Harry has been gone for a year, and immediately the whole country has gone tits up. This is worth it."

"That's what Harry and I said as well all those years ago, when he was still hunting Death Eaters," she said morosely. "And you know what that did to our relationship back then."

"Don't worry, Ginny," he said, laying his hand on top of hers reassuringly. "I'm not going anywhere until we've found him. I promised you before, and I'll keep myself to that."

She smiled and blinked away the tears as her breath constricted in her throat.

"Thank you," she simply said. "It seems like outside of us and my family, everyone has simply given up on him. But I can't…"

He squeezed her hand. "I understand," he said. "Now, it's getting late, and you have to see Teddy tomorrow. No, no, don't bother," he said when she went to pick up their glasses. He stood up, and quickly gave them to the bartender. They popped on their hoods again before they exited The Bucket of Blood and made their way back to the secluded parking lot at the back.

"I'll send you a message with the time and location of our meeting once I've got some new developments," he said. "Until then: lay low, and keep that galleon on you, just in case we need to act fast."

"Do you really think there's a chance that will happen?" she asked.

"If I didn't have hope, I would never have agreed to all this," he said, a touch of mirth in his voice. "Take care of yourself, Ginny."

"You too, Craig. And thank you once again… for everything."

* * *

She arrived far too early at the Three Broomsticks the next day. There was virtually no one there yet, even though it was a Hogsmeade weekend for the students at Hogwarts.

"Ginny Weasley," Madame Rosmerta said loudly as she entered the bar. The sounds of the cold wind died down as the door closed behind her.

"It's good to see you again, Rosmerta," she said, approaching the woman behind the bar. "Can I get a table for two, please?"

"Meeting Teddy again? It's good to see you're still looking out for that poor boy," she said. "Go on to the back, those tables have a bit more privacy."

Ginny smiled in thanks and received a wink in reply. She sat down at a small table underneath the rickety staircase that led to the first floor, and wondered if the bar owner used glamour charms or if there was some form of surgery involved. That body of hers didn't belong to a woman who had already passed sixty.

A good while later, after many other students had already entered, she saw the door open, and Teddy entered. He caught her eye, whispered something to his friends, and then made his way straight towards her. Ginny stood up, and Teddy walked straight into her open arms.

"Hey, giant," she said when they separated again, and she had to look up a considerable amount to meet his eye.

"Hi," he said somewhat sheepishly.

"C'mon, let's sit down," she said, pointing at the seat across from hers.

"So, how's life at school?" she asked once he was properly settled in and Madame Rosmerta had come by to bring them Butterbeers.

"Pretty good," he said. "Everything's pretty normal, really. Émile is sick again, though, but at least it isn't contagious this time. Actually…" His expression became distant for a moment.

"It's strange. He was caught at one night when he snuck from the Hospital Wing into the library. Filch found him in the Restricted Section. We think he was sick of being sick so he was trying to find ways to cure himself."

"Strange…"

"That's Émile," Teddy said, shrugging.

"Anyway, how are your classes going?"

"Yeah, classes are going okay, I guess. Professor Settembrini is a really good Defence teacher, so that's fun."

"Any marks, then?" she insisted. "From what I heard, it's going a little more than okay, or not?"

"Yeah," he said, brushing his hand through his hair, which got a subtle reddish tone as he lowered his gaze. "I got an O on the latest test."

"An O? That's incredible!" She reached across to shove his shoulder when he still refused to look up. "Oh, liven up, Teddy. That's something to be proud of! No need to be so shy about that."

"I guess," he said hesitantly, but she noticed that he did sit up straighter after that. "I heard you won yesterday."

"Yeah, we did! This year is definitely looking much better already than last year," she said, referring to the steep nose-dive last season had taken. Not coincidentally, that had begun just after Harry had disappeared. "Speaking of Quidditch; how did the try-outs go?"

"I didn't make it," he said, slumping down again. "My focus is shit–"

"Language," she interjected sternly.

"Sorry. My concentration is _poor_ ," he accentuated. "I never stood a chance, and Jones got the snitch way before me. I can't play Seeker."

"Maybe not, but that's not the only position you have to play, you know," she said. "Why do you keep insisting on playing Seeker anyway? I think you'd be a great Keeper.' She grinned. 'You've got the arms of an ape, after all."

Teddy glanced down at them, as if to see whether she was right. Then he looked up again. "Do you think I could be a good Keeper?"

"I really do. You've only started playing a year ago, but you've come leaps and bounds." She hesitated, then she leaned forwards. "Harry wouldn't care what position you play either, you know," she said softly, knowing full well his reason for insisting to play Seeker.

But at the mention of Harry, all bright colour left Teddy's hair. The boy was never good at hiding his emotions.

"If I just hadn't run away from him…"

"Don't even start with that," she snapped. "We've had this conversation too many times already. You are not to blame for what happened. The fault is on him, Yaxley, and that bloody Elder Wand. Not on you."

"You're one to talk," he retorted. "And language."

Ginny irritably thought he was too smart for his own good.

"Anyway," she said, refusing to get into the same old argument they'd been having the past year. "I've got some news: Auror Robertson finally found a lead."

Teddy perked up, much in the same way as Ginny had done yesterday. His hair promptly went three shades lighter. "Really? Where?"

"It's not much, sadly," she said to him while he eagerly leaned forward. "An innkeeper at the edge of the Forbidden Forest saw him a year ago. That's all we have for now, but Robertson seems really enthusiastic about it."

"You don't," Teddy noted.

She sighed. "One year is a long time. Not only for us, but also for Harry. He could be anywhere right now. But Robertson told me he sees it as a line. The starting point is there now, he says, so he hopes to be able to pull it through all the way to wherever Harry may be now."

"That makes sense," he said thoughtfully. "How long d'you reckon it'll take before we find him?" He'd asked that question numerous times by now. She didn't blame him.

"I don't know," she said as per usual. "But I wouldn't bet on anytime soon."

Teddy left soon thereafter with his friends, leaving Ginny to reminisce about how fast it all had gone. Not one year ago she had talked to a heartbroken and shell-shocked boy who seemed unable to stop himself from blushingly gazing at her chest. In an impulse decision, she had promised to teach him how to play Quidditch, even though Andromeda, Teddy's grandmother, assured her that even Harry hadn't been able to instil love for the sport in him.

But for whatever reason, be it politeness or a crush, he had agreed. And since then they regularly met up, sometimes to play Quidditch together, sometimes to simply talk. At some point during those long afternoons his stammering demeanour disappeared and he was finally able to act like himself around her. But the circumstances of Harry's disappearance had always remained a sore spot.

She watched the boy leave, feeling a warmth in her chest she couldn't quite place, and wondered if this was what it was Harry felt as well towards him.

She stood up, and as she paid Rosmerta and exited the bar, she questioned why it had to be Harry Potter of all people she had to fall in love with.

* * *

Harry left the bed and breakfast with somewhat lifted spirits. The meal, change of clothes, and good night's sleep had made a world of difference, and the wind and rain didn't seem to affect him that much today. He shouldered the bag filled with bread, fruit, and water, kindly given to him by the hostess, and he felt like today was truly the start of something new. He didn't know yet where he was going, but that didn't matter.

In fact, that lack of direction somehow invigorated him. He could go anywhere he wanted. He could leave the country. He could leave the continent and see wizarding cultures in faraway lands, where he wouldn't be recognised. Or he could simply follow the horizon and see where that led him to. All was fine by him, because today would be the day that he would start climbing out of the hole he'd been in for a year now. The rhythm of his footsteps quickened, and with straight back and lifted chin, he walked on, toward the horizon.

* * *

Moods change quickly when on the road. Initial hopefulness and optimism never really lasted the whole way through, he'd come to realise. Gradually it would slip away, until that moment when he suddenly became aware of how cold he was, how tired his legs were, how hard it had become to breathe. And how long the road ahead still is.

Gradually the wild and exciting ideas of going to a faraway place lost their charm. It wasn't really what he wanted, anyway. He wanted to go home, to Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Teddy: his family. He _had_ to go home. The things he had seen in Belfast were too important. People had to know.

Either Harry had trouble navigating on that cloudy, sunless day, or his thoughts were subtly manipulated, prodded, and kneaded by that foul artefact he was carrying at the time. Whatever the cause was, his direction gravitated towards the west more and more rather than south, towards London. As if the wand had become a magnet to something.

He crossed the border between England and Wales, and passed through seemingly endless suburbs, past sports fields, schools, bus stops, and rows after rows of brown brick houses. And as he soldiered on without finding a place to sleep with his limited reserve of money, that hope he'd felt at the start of the day quickly vanished.

As the sun set behind the dull grey blanket of clouds, panicked thoughts rose up in him. Where could he sleep safely? He'd had enough experience living on the streets that simply lying down on the street resulted in being either mugged or taken to the police station. He wanted neither of those. So, as the flat towns and farm fields slowly became more hilly, the rows of houses less frequent, and the patches of autumn-coloured forests more abundant, he elected to simply walk on.

Darkness settled quickly, and the change of scenery that came with it gave him renewed energy. Because at night, a primal part of the brain wakes up and becomes more alert. His hearing and smell improved as his sight was reduced to the areas lit by lamp posts, some of which had a "missing" poster of a young woman called Mary on them. He stopped to analyse one of them, noting her radiant smile, brown hair, and the strange gemstone on the necklace she was wearing. Then he walked on again. Lights next to front doors turned on one by one as he passed houses, their sensors picking up his movement. And from up above, the lights of airplanes shone down on him, faintly illuminating the streets and fields around him in a ghostly white blinking light.

He was walking on reserves, he knew, as his supply of bread and fruit would only get him so far. Tiredness stung at his eyes and he felt a headache coming on. His arms and legs felt heavier and heavier with every step he took on the dark, rough pavement. But something - maybe his stubbornness, fear of being assaulted or arrested, or something else he didn't want to understand – made him keep moving.

He turned on a provincial road as he reached the edge of town. There were no more houses now, no more parks or other buildings, and eventually the street lights and their "missing" posters disappeared as well. His pupils dilated, and he could only faintly see the edges of the forest on both sides of the road. The hairs on his neck stood up as the woods creaked and sighed in the wind, and strange animals he didn't recognise called out to him. For a moment he felt like he was back in the Forbidden Forest, the distant memory forcing its way to his conscious mind, brought about by the familiar sound of a breathing, living forest. He knew it was only a year ago that he had run away from his old life, but it felt like much longer. Only the change of season, the cold wind stinging at him more and more, and the shadows elongating around him, reminded him that it had really only been one year.

Determined not to think of that hellish time or the horrible deed he'd done there, he increased his tempo.

But then he saw a faint light, just further up the hill, dancing slightly back and forth as it floated above the road. He stopped and narrowed his eyes to try and see it better. It was the only source of light on this stretch of road that climbed up the forested hill ahead of him, and it basked the surrounding trees and ferns in a ghostly blue light.

He had a brief flashback to a night in the Forest of Dean, when Snape's Patronus had appeared to him in the middle of the night.

Intrigued, Harry set off again, up the hill, towards that strange ball of light. But before he reached it, it swerved on the spot and then disappeared into the thickets. A few moments later he arrived at the spot where it used to be and peered through the canopy. He saw it, albeit faintly, lighting up the forest floor and tree trunks around it. It was quite far away from him already, and it slowly floated further and further into the woods, manoeuvring past ferns, bushes and trees.

Harry took one last look at the empty road ahead of him, and then entered the forest.

Yet he could hardly see a thing as he chased the light, and in his blindness he repeatedly stumbled over roots, knolls, and mole heaps. His boots and the cuffs of his trousers quickly became soaked from the leaf-covered ground that was damp from the perpetual rains. He quickly became disoriented among the endless bare trunks of the spruce trees that passed by him. The trunks were like bars of a cage door, standing between him and the faint light dancing in front of him as it illuminated the sylvan nature around it. When he dared to look behind him, he saw in the distance a faint, orange glow that reflected against the overcast sky; light that was cast out by the Welsh towns he had passed through earlier.

He faced forward again, following the light further downhill. He could now hear water from a nearby creek running over stones and earth just to his left; but it was too dark to see. The further he followed that ghostly light, the denser the bushes he waded through became, and their thorny branches frequently hooked onto his clothes, pulling him back, scratching at every bit of exposed skin.

He couldn't see, and that was his downfall.

A vicious thorn tore through his trousers and grazed his leg just below the knee. Wincing, he pulled the branch from his skin. He pressed his fingers to where it had hooked into him and felt blood oozing out onto his fingers. He whispered a curse in his frustration and then sped up to catch up to the light again, dragging his wounded leg and trying to ignore the burning feeling the thorn had left behind.

Then it happened. One step there was still leafy ground below him, but at the next he found no solid surface anymore. His foot plummeted down and the momentum lurched him along.

An ice-cold wall of water slammed into him, forcing the breath from his lungs as he disappeared underwater. He inhaled some of it and choked as it slid down towards his lungs. His clothes, instantly soaked, clung to him like an icy, heavy vice. He scrambled through the pitch-black water, desperate to find the surface. And then at last he breached it, coughing, spluttering and spitting out the water he'd swallowed, gratefully breathing in fresh air.

He tried to find solid ground with his feet, but there was nothing under him except strange, tendril-like plants that caressed his body in the sway of the water. The edges of the pool were nowhere to be seen in this darkness, and he found that he couldn't swim; his clothes grew heavier and heavier, and any last bits of strength he had left in him after walking so long were sapped from his freezing, paralysed body.

He looked around, and then saw that the light was still there. It hovered just above the water at the far end of the black pool, reflecting against its surface. Harry feebly kicked some of the weeds away and moved closer towards it but saw now that it wasn't just a bowl-shaped light. It was a lantern. And behind it was the silhouette of a small, one-legged creature.

_A Hinkypunk_ , he then realised. His scream of frustration echoed strangely in the forest, but there was no response. He'd been fooled, lured in by a creature he'd learned about in his third year at Hogwarts.

Getting angry wouldn't help. First, he had to get to shore. He kicked away more plants, but he found that it was becoming harder and harder to move his legs, and those horrible tendrils seemed to be gravitating towards him.

He stopped kicking around so wildly and looked down to try and see what was happening. But he couldn't see a thing. Below him, his body disappeared into the inky black water that was probably full of dirt and rotting leaves. He fought to keep his panicked breathing under control and reached down with his arms to try and pry his legs loose from the spiralling grip the plants had on him. But in doing so, the plants below snaked around his wrists as well, languidly dragging him deeper into the water. He was sinking. Soon, his chin was submerged. Then his mouth submerged as well, and by the time he had fully disappeared underwater, he couldn't move his limbs at all.

He struggled, but his desperate movements were impossibly sluggish. It was in vain, and he sunk deeper and deeper. It was pitch-black here, except for that damned light that shone far above him, beyond the water's surface. The Hinkypunk was undoubtedly watching him, waiting for its prey to drown.

Harry's feet met muddy ground, and then something slithered across his ankles and slid inside his trousers. Then he felt it again. And again, and more and more of those creatures began to crawl up his legs, but he couldn't do anything about it. The weed-like tendrils had coiled themselves tightly around his arms, legs, and torso, winding up his chest and toward his exposed throat. His lungs began to burn, and the instinct to inhale became almost unbearable.

A searing pain shot through his legs, but instead of a scream, a stream of bubbles escaped from his mouth. He fought against the vice grip of the plants, struggled to move his hand down to his legs, but instead of finding skin, he touched something soft and squishy – and his mind reeled in horror.

Leeches. And lots of them. He felt the writhing mass of creatures slithering up and down his legs, trying to find any piece of exposed skin to latch onto.

His last attempts to free himself were in vain, and he finally gave up trying to move his arms; they had become so heavy. The burning pain in his chest was now fading away, but he knew that was only because his body was shutting down.

And then, out of the blackness, a vision of a figure came forth, its eyes glowing, yet as black as the muddy water he was drowning in. A devilish grin revealed far too many sharp teeth.

"Your life is at an end, Harry Potter," it spoke in a gravelly tone. "You orphan in a corner. You frightful prey, drowning alone, so far away from home. Your world is in cinders because of your wrongdoings. Today, your usefulness has come to an end."

Harry felt his last few sparks of strength being wrenched away from him as the leeches sucked more and more from him.

"You have served your purpose well. Thanks to you, the Wand will once more be a part of the machinations of this world. And now at last you are powerless to prevent it. Sleep now, Harry Potter."

Before he lost consciousness, a ball of light appeared above him. It entered the water, sinking slowly down towards him. Then he felt a strong tug on his sweater, and his eyes drifted shut.

* * *

Ginny leaned in close to her mug and stared in disgust at the mess of dark green mint leaves floating languidly in her mug.

"What's the point of these leaves?" she asked, tugging on the part of the tuft of leaves that stuck out above the water. "They look disgusting."

"You agreed to order mint tea," Hermione said with a tinge of amusement. "It'll taste good, trust me."

Ginny cast a doubtful look at her friend, and then at the leaves floating in the water. They reminded her of the weeds growing in the pond near the Burrow.

They sat in a secluded corner of a small Muggle café near the Leaky Cauldron. They had finally found a time where both could take a short break from their busy lives, and so they had agreed to spend some time catching up on everything: work, Ron, little Rose, and the search for Harry.

"So Rose is almost a year old now," Ginny began. "Any plans on celebrating?"

"Oh, yes!" Hermione said, perking up, a bright light shining in her eyes. "I mean, it's her first birthday, so we want to make it something special, Ron and I. I went to my parents last weekend to talk about this, actually, and we dug up the photo albums from the time when I was that young."

"Oh, that sounds lovely!" Ginny exclaimed.

"It was! Hang on…" Hermione paused, and took the small black tablet thing from her purse that she called a phone. Then the screen lit up, and after pressing her fingers to it a few times, she pushed it towards Ginny.

"Look, this is me on my first birthday," she said.

Ginny bent over to look more closely and saw a happy girl with wispy brown hairs looking around as she was surrounded by several adults and a chocolate-covered cake with one candle planted on top of it.

"Oh, you look adorable," Ginny sighed with a faint smile. "And that cake looks delicious! Oh, woops!" she said. She'd pressed her fingers to the screen without thinking, but then the picture disappeared.

"Oh, don't worry about that," Hermione said quickly, dragging the phone away again. "Touch screen, remember?"

"Come again?"

"Never mind. So we wanted to invite our closest family and friends, and have an afternoon and dinner together at our place."

"Yeah, that sounds nice. Who do you want to invite?"

"Well, you, of course!" Hemione said, holding up her fingers as she counted. "And all the Weasleys that can come, my parents…"

"Neville and Hannah…" Ginny added.

"Yes, of course! And…"

Their eyes met, and they both knew they were thinking about the same name. And at that exact moment, Ginny felt something in her pocket.

"What is it?" Hermione asked, noticing her being startled and sitting up straighter in her chair.

"The galleon," she replied, trusting that the privacy charms would hide their conversation from the Muggle students (who all drank mint tea as well) surrounding them. She placed the coin on the table and read it out loud. "The Royal Oak, Tabard Street, London."

"That's not too far from here," Hermione said. "Do you have to go now?"

"No, don't worry – it's at eight tonight."

"Ah."

A pause.

Ginny looked up at her friend's silence.

"Are you still angry at him?" she asked.

Hermione exhaled slowly and stirred her tea absently, making the mint leaves move in a distinctly revolting way. "I don't know how to feel about it at all."

"What do you mean?"

She took a slow sip before responding. "Should I be angry about that curse he threw at me, or should I be angry with myself for running at him like a headless chicken?" she said, and she held up a hand to stop Ginny from interrupting. "And on top of that, shouldn't I be more angry at him for running away and leaving _you_ all alone for a whole year?"

Ginny's retort died on her lips.

"He's been gone for a year," she continued more softly. "And before that, he hid the Elder Wand from you for months. I'm not trying to wedge you and him apart, Ginny, but do you really, truly know him?"

The placating tone didn't help.

"First of all," Ginny said after taking a deep breath. "You don't have to tell me those things. I know quite well what he did, in fact I've hardly stopped thinking about it ever since he disappeared. And second…" she paused and looked into her friend's brown eyes, briefly wondering how many times they had talked about Harry in the past fifteen years. She sighed. "I suppose you have a point. I mean, I knew that he was hiding something from me, even from the moment he pulled me out of the Black Lake. I just assumed that he would tell me at some point, so I just…"

"And you were afraid to put a strain on your relationship again, because you remember where that lead to last time."

Ginny sighed buried her face in her hands. "I really fucked it up, didn't I?" she asked, her voice muffled behind her hands. Her mood threatened to overwhelm her, and it became even harder to not cry when Hermione leaned across to gently hold her arm.

"You both made mistakes," she said slowly. "Mostly Harry. But you're trying your hardest to fix them. And if I know Harry, he's probably out there doing just the same."

"But what if he's not?" she asked, trying to swallow the grief she felt. "Merlin, he probably still thinks he killed your baby! Even saying it is awful, so imagine how he must be feeling!"

Hermione didn't reply, but she didn't remove her hand from her arm. Angry with herself for letting her emotions get the better of her, she sniffed and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

"I won't stop looking for him," Ginny vowed. "When I find him, I'll kick some sense into him, but I won't stop searching. For better or for worse."

Hermione quirked an eyebrow. "You're not married, though."

"That's a mistake we'll have to fix, then," she said, sitting up straight and pushing the mug with the icky mint leaves away. All of the doubts she'd been having of his whereabouts, his feelings for her, and all evenings spent wondering whether he was even still alive - it all seemed so silly all of a sudden. He was Harry Potter. Of course he was alright.

"It's always been him, Hermione. You know that better than anyone. And I think we've danced around each other long enough."

Hermione's radiant smile was infectious. "You know Ron and I are right behind you," she said.

"For better or worse."

"For better or worse."


	5. Chapter 4

Harry floated in and out of consciousness but felt lost to the world. He was dimly aware of the things that were happening to his body. He was moved, dragged, carried, and then placed into a warm cocoon. He no longer felt cold, nor out of breath. He felt no pain, no harm, no tragedy.

And for the first time after endless grey ages, he dreamt peaceful dreams. No longer was his slumber a simple escape from being awake. Instead it was filled with travels and sights that instilled childlike wonder. He dreamt of rolling hills where the grass grazed his hands as he ran through it, of mountains where the air was so pure that it cleansed his body with every breath, of warm tropical beaches, where the torrents of warm rain would soak through him, cleaning all that he had become. The sensations were so vivid and tangible that he yearned to reach out and touch every star and every blade of grass that he saw. He would bathe in a world of sensation, love, goodness, simplicity.

And then he would see Ginny, with her inviting brown eyes and flowing red hair. Not when she had stared at him in shock, with the shadows of the deep, dark forest reflected in her eyes; but when they had floated on the water together that one blissful summer afternoon. And together they would swim to shore, to their home, her small, freckled hand in his as they gently made their way back, sunlight caressing their naked skin…

But the dream always stopped there. Sometimes he would then drift into memories; other times he would almost wake to the blurry vision of a small room, a heavenly soft bed underneath him, and an earthly smell that filled his nose and assured him that he was safe here.

Yet something was wrong with him. He felt his respiration, the beating of his heart, the passing of blood and air through his lungs. But he also felt a bruising pain in his chest with every breath he took; a throbbing ache in his legs with every burst of blood rushing through his arteries. Worst of all, he felt the wand that still pressed into his left wrist. There was a sickly coldness spread from it, past his skin, through his muscles, tendons, and the marrow of his bone, into the core of his body. There, he knew, the parasitic thing leeched off of the faint light of his soul that slumbered in his chest.

If only he wasn't too tired to care.

He drifted back to sleep again, and this time he dreamt of a misty, abandoned road off an enormous field of parking lots. There, where the true depths of his misery began.

* * *

Travelling to Belfast had been an unconscious decision. That was what he kept telling himself, anyway. Meanwhile he desperately tried to ignore the stinging feeling on his left arm, where the Elder Wand rested against his bare skin.

And so, Harry found himself under his Invisibility Cloak aboard a ferry travelling from Liverpool to Belfast.

The trip lasted half a day, and the ship was shrouded in a thick autumn fog for the entire duration. The sea was absolutely silent, and the soft, wet air went right through the thin fabric of his cloak, covering his hair, brows, and eyelashes in dew. He could even taste the tongues of mist as they swirled past and through him.

The mist hadn't abated at all by the time the ship docked in Belfast late in the afternoon. The stream of passengers disembarked and immediately moved to the cars waiting in the designated parking spots on the enormous stretch of concrete next to the quay. Only Harry remained in the enormous parking field, and once he was sure that he was alone and sufficiently shrouded in mist, he took off his cloak once again.

And there he was: soaked, lost, tired, and hungry, with a plastic bag containing only a juice box and an old croissant.

He set off in search for some food, and came across a roadside restaurant after about five minutes of walking through the endless grey fog. The building looked newer than the containers, storehouses, and garages surrounding it. The picnic tables and playground outside were exceedingly wet and deserted, but it seemed fairly comfortable inside.

As Harry contemplated whether or not to go inside, he heard a faint shuffling of feet on the pavement behind him. Before he could turn around, something sharp was pressed to his side, and then a revolting wave of smells washed over him as the person leaned close to him.

"Right, fella," the person wheezed, treating Harry to another waft of cigarettes, ill care, and a general lack of hygiene. "Here's how it's gonna go. Ye're gonna turn around, cross the street, and enter the bushes there."

Harry, his heartbeats picking up in tempo, considered his options. "I don't have any money..." he said.

"Bullshit," the person replied. "Now do as I said, or I swear to God I'll gut ye right where ye're standing." His smoky voice sounded like an old man, or a man prematurely old.

Harry was keenly aware of the sharp thing pressing into his side, and so he saw no other choice than to do as the man said. The pair crossed the deserted road in silence, and the fog seemed to grow thicker, pressing against his ears, streaking past his lips.

The man stayed pressed up uncomfortably close to him during their walk to the bushes and underwood, and once they were suitably out of sight of any possible passers-by, he turned Harry around.

The man was a mess. Hair and beard were streaked with grey, his black beady eyes were looking at him unsteadily, and his skin had clammy, yellowish tint. His eerily thin frame was covered by an ill-fitting bomber jacket and torn jeans, and they were standing in a clearing that was hidden from the road, where the floor was covered with a wide variety of rubbish.

"I'm telling you, mate, I don't have any money…" Harry began, but then the man bared his black teeth and pressed the knife to his throat.

"I've heard that excuse a dozen times before," he growled, teeth clenched and eyes glittering manically. "I'm not buying it, you lot always have something on ye. So go on, clear out yer pockets."

Harry swallowed, and released his breath when the man took the knife away from his throat. He then showed the man the contents of his bag and empty jean pockets.

The man began shaking even more, if that were possible.. Harry's eyes fell on the many needles strewn around among the rubbish on the floor.

"Damn it all," the man hissed, scratching his scalp with long, filthy nails. Then his head snapped up, and he looked Harry straight in the eye, his gaze strangely void. In that moment, Harry knew the man's feeble control had snapped. He hollered wildly, the insanity-fuelled anger plain to hear in his voice, and he flew toward Harry with his knife raised.

Harry grabbed his forearm with both hands and braced for the impact, just barely managing to remain upright as the crazed man crashed into him. The knife inched closer towards Harry in their bitter struggle. The man gritted his teeth and pushed even harder, slamming Harry's back against a tree. The knife inched even closer to his throat, and he felt the cold steel press against his exposed skin…

And then the man stiffened. His eyes widened, the knife slipped from his bony hands, and he slowly toppled backward, crashing into the needle-strewn floor.

Harry released the breath he'd been holding all that time, but he didn't relax just yet. "Who's there?" he called out.

Then a figure emerged from the mist: a man, quite broad, about the same height as Harry. He had neat brown hair, a bushy beard and a long black winter coat.

"You alright?" the man asked hesitantly, coming to a halt opposite him. "That man didn't hurt you, did he?"

Harry didn't reply, instead staring suspiciously at the wand held loosely in the other man's hand.

"Not much of a talker, then? That's okay," he continued with a surprising softness in his voice. "The name's Damien Smith. Who are you?"

Harry cleared his throat and now looked up to meet his eye. "Dudley Dursley," he said. His hair had become long enough by now that he didn't have to worry anymore about it not hiding his scar. He pointed at the man's wand. "Why aren't you hiding that thing from a stranger like me?" he asked.

The man glanced at his wand, then stuck it into the inner pocket of his jacket. "Oh, people always tell me I have a good instinct. Plus, if you were a Muggle, I'd just erase your memory and be done with it." He paused to run his eyes over Harry's body. "Say, you don't look too good. You're not from around here, are you?"

"No."

"Where are you from, then?"

"I'm from Little Whinging. That's near London."

"London? How does a man from London end up here in Belfast?" Before Harry could reply, he continued. "Actually, let's get out of here first. I'm not too fond of the… smack addict grove atmosphere." He glanced around the small clearing they found themselves in, then back at Harry. "You could come with me, if you want. I live on the other side of the city."

"Why?" Harry asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Why? Because, Dudley, you look like you're famished, tired and freezing, and you're far away from home. So you can either come with me, or you can keep standing out there to admire that restaurant you were looking at earlier. Your choice."

* * *

And so Harry found himself in the passenger seat of Damien's car as they drove over the M3 through Belfast. The mist slowly cleared, revealing the scenes they drove past: high rises, apartment blocks, warehouses covered in advertisements (a smiling woman in a police uniform with _"now hiring!"_ next to it) and the mouth of the River Lagan.

"So what brings you here?" Damien asked him eventually.

"Long story."

"I've got time."

But Harry didn't elaborate. The man seemed trustworthy enough, but Harry just didn't know where he should start, or if he even had the energy to talk about it at all. In any case, he didn't want anyone to know his true identity. Not after what he had done.

Traffic slowed down more and more as rush hour came upon them. As they sat there in the middle of traffic, surrounded by people with daily nine-to-five jobs, Harry had a sudden moment of clarity, as he realized with a shock how disconnected he really was from the rest of society. He'd seen the cogs of the country from afar the past few weeks as he'd walked aimlessly through city and countryside, and now he was suddenly in the middle of it again, adding to the traffic jam for a few miles. In an attempt to ignore the awkward silence in the car, he gazed at some more billboards on the side of the road. One read _"Trust"_ in red letters, only the "us" were coloured white for emphasis. Next to it was a banner announcing that he could save 5 on premium wines.

On the other side of the road was a park with neatly-trimmed grass and seemingly natural ponds.

"Victoria Park," Damien said, following Harry's gaze. "Lovely name, eh?"

Harry hummed noncommittally, unsure of what to think of that comment and the sarcastic tone that accompanied it. They drove on, and eventually exited the motorway. The scenery changed to a suburban one. The allure of the neighbourhoods only increased as they drove further into the city, and Harry began to wonder who the man behind the wheel actually was.

Finally, they turned right, pulling up a steep hill into the driveway of a house that might as well be called a mansion.

"Here we are," Damien said, turning off the engine. The fence behind the car closed on its own.

They stepped out, and immediately Harry noticed how silent it was here, and how clean the air smelt. He saw treetops of what looked like a dense forest behind the house.

Damien unlocked the front door and stepped inside. Harry followed the into the house and hesitantly closed the door behind him. He sat down in the living room while the man made some tea for both of them. Harry took this moment of solitude to inspect the room.

The first thing he noticed was the lack of pictures. Most living rooms had pictures of family, friends, children, and pets. The Dursleys' home used to be filled with pictures of Dudley as he grew from an oversized baby into an oversized baby with some scruff on his chin. And the Weasley's household was choc-full of pictures of children, and children of children, with a prominent position on the hearth for Fred.

But Damien's living room had none of that. It was, in fact, almost sterile. The white floor and black leather couches were spotless, as was the glass coffee table. Perhaps it was that spotlessness that made Harry feel that there was something… _off_ about the room. It didn't feel lived in. But, he considered, perhaps the man just had a busy job. It would explain how he could afford this house.

Harry moved to the other side of the living room to look through the terrace windows at the forest that stretched out behind the garden fence. That was when Damien stepped in with two glass mugs of tea. He had taken off his coat, revealing an equally black jumper that fit snugly around his broad, tall frame.

"Come, let's sit down," he said, indicating a set of black sofas and a black couch.

"So," he said a tad loudly, setting the mugs down and taking a seat in one of the sofas across from Harry. "You've been awfully quiet on the way here, Dudley. If you don't mind, I'm curious as to what your story is."

"Again, it's a long story…"

"You're magical, for starters," he said, not accusingly. "You recognised my wand, did you not?"

"I'm a Squib," Harry corrected him unflinchingly. One advantage of having his emotions numbed, crushed to a pulp, was that he no longer felt even a trace of guilt when he lied. It made it a lot easier.

"Ah, pardon my assumption," Damien said smoothly. "What do you do for a living?"

"I'm… I _was_ a copper," Harry said.

"What happened?"

Harry sighed. "My boss and I didn't see eye to eye concerning one case. Eventually I made a horrible call, and…"

"Your boss was happy to throw you out?"

"No, not at all," Harry said, remembering Kingsley's anguished expression during that memorable conversation they'd had right after Xenophilius Lovegood had been murdered. "But he still did."

Damien, thankfully, didn't ask any further questions about that.

"Do you keep in contact with the magical world at all?" he asked instead.

"Not anymore. I stopped keeping up a month or two ago. Got no real connections to it. Family's dead."

"Sorry to hear that," Damien said, taking a sip of his tea. Harry did the same. "Well, you've missed a lot, I can tell you that much."

"Oh?" Harry felt his heartbeat quicken and blood rushing in his ears. He tried to keep his expression neutral, but he wasn't sure how successful he was at it.

"Yeah. Well, Harry Potter disappeared, for one. I don't know if you know anything about that…?"

"Harry Potter? No, I don't," Harry said quickly. "What happened?"

"I'd love to know," Damien replied, leaning forward and cupping his mug with both hands. "I only know what's written in the papers, and the papers are… Well, you know what they're like."

"Oh yeah, definitely."

"Anyway, I've been asking far too many questions. I suppose I'll give you some respite for now," he added, chuckling. "Tell you what: I suppose you want to clean up, right?"

"Erm…"

"Of course you do. And a new set of clothes, I think. Follow me."

Harry once again followed the man into the hallway, up the thin, polished stairs that had no railing, and into the bathroom.

"Here we are. Shower, loo, bath, and a sink and mirror. I'll grab some clothes for you. Towel's in the drawer under the sink."

Harry nodded at the man, but his attention was more aimed at the mirror opposite the doorway, where he saw, for the first time in ages, his own reflection. Tears sprung in his eyes as he finally took sight of his wretched state, his wasted figure, his hollow stare. He hardly recognised himself. He was sick, ugly. His hair and beard were streaked with grey now.

He averted his gaze, but the image was already burned into his retinas. Quite why Damien even wanted to talk to a person who looked like this, he didn't know.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, he came downstairs again, wearing clothes that were a bit too wide for his emaciated body, to find that the man had cooked dinner for them both. He should have felt thankful. He _knew_ he would have under normal circumstances. But he didn't. That made him feel even worse.

"Thanks," he lied with downcast eyes as they sat down in the black sofas.

"Think nothing of it. Oh and before I forget: do you drink?"

"Sure."

Damien nodded. He placed the two plates of pasta on the table and disappeared into the kitchen for a moment.

He reappeared with a bottle of wine and two glasses in his hand and poured them both a healthy amount.

"First wine I've had in ages," Harry grumbled. "Thank you."

"That's the twentieth time you've said thanks. C'mon, just enjoy it. Cheers."

They clinked glasses. The first sip slid down his throat, and he immediately felt the warmth slide down his throat, into his stomach, and to his ears.

"Good wine, this," he commented.

"It's just discount wine," Damien laughed. "But I suppose you'll take just about anything at this point, am I right?"

"Oh, absolutely."

They ate mostly in good-natured silence.

"I suppose you'll be wanting a place to sleep," Damien said after he'd put the dishes away in the kitchen. "Preferably inside?"

"Yeah, ideally," Harry chuckled, feeling his ears redden. Just two glasses had apparently been more than enough.

"You can sleep in the spare bedroom, then. Never use it anyway."

"Just for today? Or…"

"D'you have any plans, then?"

"Not really. Don't starve or freeze to death, I guess."

"Then just stay for a while. Warm yourself up, get yourself healthy again. It's going to be winter soon, and I wouldn't want you to be out there on your own without any food or shelter."

"Th–"

"No, I will not hear it. It's my pleasure to help you, Dudley."

"You're too kind," Harry said, this time fully meaning it. "I honestly don't know how to repay you."

But Damien just chuckled at that. "Don't worry about that."

* * *

That night, he dreamt that he was back in the Forbidden Forest. The dark woods were empty, and it was eerily quiet. He saw only the black forest floor and the trees, their trunks all around him, closing in on him like bars of a cage. His heart thudded in his throat, but his legs kept their motion whether his mind wanted them to or not. Panic started to rise in him, and he wished with all his heart that he wouldn't revisit _that_ scene now. He made his way down a slope, the same slope he'd descended back then. His reluctance, and the terror at what he was about to see, only grew as he moved further downhill, passing ghostly white trees and bare branches.

Three figures emerged from the void darkness, and as he approached them he recognised them as Ron, Hermione, and Ginny. They said nothing, they stood silent, unmoving, and stared at him with eyes as black as the encroaching shadows surrounding him. He moved past them, and then he saw it, lying there, on the forest floor. A small heap, moving feebly, curled up in foetal position, excreting red and yellow fluids as it uttered pitiful, barely human gurgles…

He woke up, and for a moment he didn't know where he was. He looked around, hoping that the nausea and intensity of the images burned in his retina would pass.

Light danced on the grey bed covers and the equally colourless wall at the far end, all the way up to the jarringly high ceiling. It came in from the window to his left, uncovered by curtains, and so he could clearly see raindrops slither down the surface. Trees, leaves and hedges shuffled around in the harsh autumn winds outside in the light of a nearby streetlamp.

He was in the spare bedroom of Damien's house. His nose, ears, and uncovered shoulder were absolutely freezing in this strange room. He needed to use the bathroom, but it was warm underneath the disconsolate bedcovers, and far too cold outside them.

He turned around, away from the window, and tried to fall asleep then, straining his mind to stop revisiting what he'd just seen.

* * *

Harry didn't say much at breakfast the next day, and instead stared out of the giant window facing the back garden. The grass, tiled walkways, walls, and the row of poplars behind the property were just as straight as the rest of the house, and all in all it just looked a bit uninspiring. He never really enjoyed the taste of the croissants and coffee Damien had prepared for them, either.

"I'm off now," Damien said, emerging into the room wearing his long black coat, while Harry was nibbling quietly on his bread roll. "Got a long day of work ahead of me. Feel free to poke around, read a bunch of books. The neighbourhood's safe as well, if you feel like going for a stroll."

"Thanks," Harry said, although the prospect of doing something was downright terrifying.

And then the house was empty and silent. Harry sat there at the table for a very long time, staring at his unfinished croissant and almost empty glass of orange juice, until he got sick of the smell and the way the fat of the croissant clung to his cold hands. There was nothing more to say.

Damien told him more about what had happened in the wizarding world during dinner that evening, correctly guessing Harry's desire to hear of it.

"We left off at Harry Potter's disappearance. The world had ended, or at least according to the papers and what people whispered to each other in the streets. Also here, in the magical communities of Belfast, rumours were spinning out of control. Shacklebolt remained minister for a couple of weeks, but his time was up, and he knew it as well. He was voted out on the 15th of October, 2011, and Lord Castlereagh was named interim minister by the Wizengamot, to no one's surprise. And you can say what you want about him, but he gets things done." He paused and regarded Harry from across the table. "Honestly, Dudley, I can't believe you haven't heard of any of this. It's the stuff of legends already!"

"I bet," Harry commented. "So what kind of things has he done, then?"

"Arrested Shacklebolt on corruption charges, for starters." Harry's fork with a glob of cheesy rice on it froze in mid-air. "Yeah, this happened just the other week. Apparently his methods in regards to catching Death Eaters were a lot less ethical than we all thought. There's also an arrest warrant for Harry Potter himself, could you believe. But he's nowhere to be found, of course."

"You're kidding," Harry uttered, his fork falling down onto his plate. "I mean… Harry Potter, of all people?!"

"Yeah, crazy, isn't it?" Damien asked, a wry grin spreading across his face. "Makes you wonder if he knew what was coming, and just got out while he had the chance."

Harry said nothing.

"But that doesn't seem like him, I don't think. Plus, it doesn't answer the question of what had happened on the night he disappeared. I mean, let's go over the details again, shall we? He disappears after a meeting with Minister, later that night they say he is spotted on Hogwarts grounds. Then, and I've memorised this," he added, counting the protagonists with his fingers, "Headmistress McGonagall, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Ginny Weasley, and Rubeus Hagrid, they all disappear into the Forbidden Forest. Potter's closest circle, I would say. No one knows what happened there, but later that night Granger was admitted to the hospital, apparently in a rush." He paused, his eyes shining with excitement as he summed up the mystery he was clearly deeply interested in. "Well. You tell me what happened."

"Me?" Harry stuttered. "Erm… I dunno." He stuck some rice in his mouth just to have an excuse to stop talking.

"Yeah, it's a true mystery. To make it more compelling, after Granger got out of the hospital again, seeming no worse for wear, and later had a health child, none of them would answer even a single thing to the many questions of the press. Hang on, I think I have an interview with Granger somewhere here…"

"Mind if I use the bathroom first?" Harry asked quickly.

Damien paused one second, as if coming back down to earth after telling that tale. "Yeah, of course," he then said.

Harry got up and stumbled out the room as casually as he could, but he had to support himself against the walls as he entered the small bathroom next to the stairway. He locked the door with fumbling hands, found the light switch, and then leaned over the sink, staring at himself in the mirror for a long time, willing the spinning to pass as the revelation sank in that he was not actually the killer of his best friends' child.

Elation, confusion, and guilt for running away vied for attention. The adrenalin of that new discovery had risen up inside his body, and he felt the blood rushing through his ears. His hands trembled as he gripped the sink tightly, and his palms were sweaty against the cold surface. And through that maelstrom, he felt a heavy weight finally lifting from him. And now he didn't know how to feel anymore.

It was the first time that he saw his face in the mirror from up close. Yesterday, he hadn't had the courage to inspect himself closely, but now his reflection was unavoidable. He'd seen himself mirrored in the window of shops, offices, and darkened houses he'd walked by, but he was still shocked at how much a few weeks had changed him. His hair was definitely greying, as was his beard, which had grown a considerable amount over the course of his wanderings. Silvery lines accentuated his sideburns and the area around his chin. And his eyes, sunken away in dark blue and purple bags, looked as lifeless as he felt. He used to pride himself on those eyes. They were his mother's, as so many people told him, and as green as a freshly-pickled toad.

But as he saw himself in this moment, he felt the joy and dizzying elation he'd felt a minute ago slip away again, only to be replaced by the same feeling he'd felt for weeks on end now. This could not go on. The fact that he'd survived until now was a small miracle in and of itself, but he knew he could not run away any more.

But he didn't have to, he realized now. He'd made a mistake by fleeing, and it was time to mend that, along with the long list of other things he'd done wrong over the past few months.

But not yet. He knew he had to gain some strength and clean himself up again before he could face his life again. Most of all, when he came back to Ginny, he didn't want to look or feel like this. When it was time for their reunion, he concluded, he would be himself again.

He took one look in the mirror and breathed in deeply, pushing his shoulders back and his chest forward. That spark he'd lost when he drank in his wasted sight, hadn't dimmed completely. And he imagined that he could see that in his reflection. He flicked off the light again.

"Sorry about that," he announced when he sat back down at the table.

"No worries. I've found that interview I was telling you about. Here, listen to this: _"I was suddenly quite ill. Pregnancy-related thing, or so the Healers told me. But as you can see, I'm fine, and so is the baby."_ That's Granger's reply. _"What happened to Harry Potter? I don't know, and we are of course just as worried about him as anyone else."_ And that's all that any of them had to say about the matter. The others didn't want to talk to the press."

Harry tried to show no reaction, but underneath the table he was gripping his seat tightly, resisting the urge to jump up and Apparate back to London straight away.

"It all sounds like quite a mess," he eventually said at length.

"Yeah," Damien said. "We'll have to see how it develops, but news about it hasn't really been forthcoming. Oh, there's been plenty of rumours, you know how it is, but fact of the matter is, Harry Potter is nowhere to be found. And seeing as he'd managed to remain hidden for almost a year back when You-Know-Who was still around, I don't think we'll be seeing anything of him any time soon."

Harry felt better the next day. The house didn't feel so cold as it did the day before, and the news that Hermione and the baby had survived had lifted his spirits.

As he tucked into breakfast, Damien paused, swallowed and shifted in his seat.

"Dudley, could you do something for me?" he asked casually.

"Sure, what do you need?" Harry replied.

"I'll be gone for work all day today, but there's a package I need to deliver to a friend of mine, just on the other side of town. I should've taken it to him yesterday, but then you showed up, and I completely forgot about it."

"Oh," Harry said, feeling the tips of his ears redden. "I'm sorry."

"No, no, it's fine. But I was wondering if you could deliver it? You could use my car, if you've got a license."

"I do," Harry replied. "But don't you have to drive to work?"

"I can just Apparate, can't I?" Damien said, winking at him. "Just because I live like a Muggle most of the time doesn't mean that I can't use magic."

* * *

Harry washed up the dishes, then took the car keys and the package, which was in a well-sealed cardboard, and set off. It was a misty morning, the sun hidden behind a thick grey carpet of fog. He followed the directions of the navigation across the town, back over the highway that brought him to Damien's house, and he came to a stop in a street in the east of town.

The fog had come back in full force, and although it had become a bit lighter as the morning progressed, it was still grey and gloomy. Rows of houses were on either side of him. They were poorly maintained, there was litter on the road, and there was not a single person to be seen outside.

Harry got out of the car with a feeling of unease, locking it before approaching the address Damien had scribbled down for him.

The house was just like every other house in the street: narrow, small, dirty, depressing. He saw a pile of rubbish all over the back seats of the car that was parked in the driveway.

He rang the bell. A dog barked inside, and the sound was followed by a loud "hush!" from the owner. A few seconds later the faded white door opened a fraction, and a pair of eyes looked at him with suspicion from the dark slit.

"What d'ya want?" the person asked gruffly.

"I've got a package for you," Harry said. "Damien sent me."

"Damien eh?" the door opened further, revealing an unshaven man, not much older than him. The white sports shirt did little to hide his enormous protruding belly. "I was expecting it yesterday. What happened?"

"I don't know," Harry lied, keeping a good distance between him and the rough-looking man. "I just do the delivery."

"Right," the man said slowly, scratching his sloppy chin. "Well go on, then."

Harry handed him the box.

"Thanks." Then the man lifted his eyes from the box to meet Harry's eyes. "What's your name, anyway? I've never seen you before."

"Oh, it's Dudley. Dudley Dursley."

"Dursley…" he repeated slowly. Then he frowned. "Strange name. Anyway, thanks. Maybe I'll see you around." Then he closed the door.

Harry, slightly confused at the exchange, was nevertheless happy to be able to leave again immediately. He turned around and went back to the car, but as he exited the driveway, he heard something rolling over the pavement to his left.

It was a child, a very small girl with wild, curly blonde hair and puffy cheeks. She was pulling a toy cart along behind her. In the cart sat a black cat that had bright green eyes. The girl stopped when Harry stopped, and she looked up at him uncertainly.

"Hello," Harry said, smiling at her. But then his eyes were drawn to those green eyes behind her. The cat was looking right at him with those oddly penetrating green eyes, and the smile slowly slid off Harry's face the longer the cat stared at him unflinchingly, its tail languidly whipping left and right.

The girl's expression turned fearful, he noticed. Then she slowly turned around, and ran back the way she came. The wheels rattled on the pavement, and the cat turned around in the cart, still looking at him with that clairvoyant gaze.

Harry shook his head and got back in the car. He turned on the ignition, and chanced another look in his mirrors. The cat and the girl were far in the distance by now, but he could still clearly see those green eyes, staring right at him.

* * *

"How'd the delivery go?" Damien asked him. It was the first thing he asked after they'd sat down to eat the rice dish he'd cooked.

"It went alright," Harry said after swallowing a spoonful. "Not much to say, really. I arrived, gave it, and left again."

"Good." He paused to take a bite. "Bit dreary over there, isn't it?"

"Yeah, a bit," Harry chuckled. He wanted to mention the cat to Damien, but he didn't. It seemed silly to talk about it, and he really wanted to just forget it. But he couldn't.

Later that night he fell asleep watching tongues of mist float around in the silent night. When he opened his eyes again, the fog was still there, only not separated from him by the window. Through the haze, he could make out dark shapes of trees, and his body started to tremble. Leaves crunched beneath him as he spun around to take in his surroundings, only to see more black trees looming out of the mist. A whimper escaped from him and his heart pounded in his throat. He'd give anything, _anything_ , to not dream about that fateful day anymore.

_But it's not real_ , a voice inside him said. _She's alive. The baby is alive, it's not real_.

At that moment, he heard a sound behind him. Twigs and leaves being moved, footsteps over the wet forest floor. It was so alike the dreams he'd had about Remus that he was surprised when it wasn't him who emerged from the woods. Instead, he saw a short figure with red hair.

"Ginny!" he tried to say, but his throat had closed and he could not make a sound anymore. He tried to step towards her, but he couldn't. His legs had become immensely heavy. He tried waving his arms to catch her attention as she stood a stone's throw away from him, but he couldn't. He couldn't even groan in frustration.

More sounds, but now directly behind him, making Ginny look up, and finally meet his eyes.

Only her eyes weren't brown and full of warmth. Instead they were bright, cold green, her pupils elongated slits, like a cat's eyes…


	6. Chapter 5

Damien asked him to deliver another package the next day, but was evasive when Harry asked him what was in the small cardboard box he'd been given.

If only he knew then what he knew now. But he was too drained, too numb, his mind inert, and so he took the box without further comment.

Harry had long lost the count of days, hours, weeks, as he spent all day inside Damien's pristine home. He took books off the bookshelves in the small library, but never mustered up the energy to register the words. His eyes roamed over the pages, but all he could see was Ginny in the forest, with her cat-like eyes staring at him, coldly judging him.

One morning his dull routine was shaken up. He sat down for breakfast opposite Damien, with a bowl of cereal and a jug of milk in his hands. As he put them down on the table, his eyes fell on the newspaper the man was reading.

" _Harry Potter spotted in Belfast? Aurors are investigating the rumour!"_

His still sleepy head started spinning, and a sweat broke out on his forehead and in the palms of his pale hands. He wanted to mention it to Damien but was afraid to arouse suspicion by explicitly mentioning it. The more often he looked in the mirror – which was often, as he was pulled to look at himself the same way people are compelled to look at road accidents – the more he realised how short-sighted and stupid he'd been to assume that his longer hair and beard would be enough to disguise himself. His eyes and glasses still stuck out a frightening amount, and if he brushed his hair aside he could plainly see the lightning bold-shaped scar on his forehead. He couldn't risk bringing attention to it.

"Looks like the fog is finally starting to clear up," Damien commented. It shook Harry out of his stupor, and he quickly filled his bowl with cereal and milk.

"Hey, Dudley?" Damien then asked, lowering the paper and peering at him.

"Yes?"

"Could you deliver another package for me?"

Harry took a slow breath, but as he regarded the man across the table, his thoughts raced quickly, any vestiges of tiredness after the long night gone.

"Of course," he said before the silence dragged on too long.

"Thank you, friend," Damien said, a smile spreading on his face. He folded the paper up and laid it on the table, and then stood up to get ready for work. Harry, in the meantime, stared back at his own face on the paper.

As soon as Damien had Apparated away, Harry stood up, took the box that stood in the entryway, set it on the table, and cut away the tape with a small knife.

His heart pounded in his throat as he opened the box. He saw old newspapers, but no magical ones. He took those out and encountered some more scraps of paper. Eventually he reached the bottom.

The heartbeat that had risen in him before, suddenly seemed to stop. His hands trembled and felt cold as he took out the contents of the box.

Plastic bags, with white powder in them. Three large ones filled to the brim with crumbly pearly product. He was no longer an Auror, but his memories of many busted smuggling rings hadn't gone away, and this was undoubtedly cocaine.

He sank back down on his chair, the bags discarded in the box as he stared ahead in a daze. Did Damien know? How did he manage to get a hold of these drugs? What was in the past few packages? The questions flew through his head, but only one of them stuck with him: what now?

He thought of going to the police, either Muggle or magical, but on the other side of the table was still that newspaper with his picture in it. It only raised more questions. The article itself wasn't very forthcoming. The new Head Auror of the ministry, Harry recognised with rising fury that it was his old corrupt boss Gawain Robards, only mentioned an anonymous tip that they were considering.

And then it struck him: the cat, and the little girl that saw him a few days ago. Of course the cat wasn't just any cat: it was a Kneazle, and it had recognised Harry immediately.

He dropped his head in his hands, his bowl of cereal forgotten and slowly turning into a grey mush. At that point, sitting there, he should have gone to the police. As far as he knew, he wasn't wanted by the Muggles as well, so there was no reason why he should avoid them. But he didn't. And all the while the breakfast in front of him was growing stale, the smell of warm milk dispersing through the room as the hours went by. He hated himself for it.

* * *

Damien came home at the end of the afternoon and encountered the scene exactly as it had been all day. He froze in the doorway, and Harry slowly lifted his head to look at him.

"I got curious," Harry said in a monotonous voice.

"I see," he said. He entered the living room and took off his coat, as if it was just any other day.

Harry couldn't bear the silence that lingered while Damien hung his coat over the back of a chair, and then sat down at the table. His face betrayed no emotion, although he kept his dark eyes on him at all times.

"Is this cocaine?" Harry asked eventually, taking one bag out of the box and showing it to Damien.

"That's none of your business, is it?" he replied, a touch of mirth evident in his voice. "You're just the errand boy, after all."

"The other deliveries…" Those had drugs as well, didn't they? You've made me smuggle drugs across town."

Damien took a deep breath, his eyes roaming over the stale bowl that sat between the plastic wrappings strewn around on the table.

"Yes" he eventually said.

"What's the meaning of this?" Harry asked, finally finding the energy to feel agitated. "Why? Was this your plan all along? I don't get it, just…" and then the little energy that he had left him again, and he buried his head in his hands again.

"I'll explain that in due time," Damien said, his mouth curling into a self-satisfied smile. "What I'm wondering, though, is why you didn't go to the police?"

Harry's eyes unconsciously flicked to the newspaper, even though he didn't want to.

"I…" Then Damien's remark about it being explained later finally entered his foggy mind, and his anger returned once more.

"You know what?" he said, standing up for the first time. The blood rushed suddenly to his cold and stiff legs, and he had to steady himself onto the table just to remain standing. "I've had enough of this," he said. "I should have gone to the police before, but I can always go now. I'm leaving." He marched decisively to the hallway, then paused in the door opening, turning around. Damien hadn't stood up from his chair. "I appreciate all the help you've given me, really, but I'm not taking part in any of this. Good-bye."

But as he touched the doorknob, Damien spoke up.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Harry," he said. His tone was soft, but that last made Harry freeze.

"What was that?" he asked, turning around to face the man again. He tried to hide his shock, but the hand holding the door knob trembled, and everything in him screamed to run away as fast as possible.

"I said you might not want to do that," Damien repeated. "Oh, and let's skip the pretences, shall we, Harry Potter? No, don't look so surprised. You didn't think I would be fooled by your simple disguise, did you?" he chuckled. "Dudley Dursley, the squib from Little Whinging… I liked the story, I really did. It's a shame for you that your eyes betrayed you when I first saw you. They're your mother's eyes, right? That's what they say in the stories about you. But top marks on the acting. You never even used your wand. Really, that's commitment."

"I…" Harry began, but years of experience as an Auror shook him out of his tongue-tied stupor. "Well, congratulations, you know who I am," he said, crossing his arms. "But can you tell me why I shouldn't walk out and contact the police?"

"Straight to the point, I like that," Damien said, standing up and slowly moving towards him. "Let's run through the scenario, shall we? You could go to the police, you're right. But first of all: what will you tell them if they ask you your name? Dudley, or Harry? They would know immediately if you say the wrong one. Especially seeing as you don't have any identification to show them. And I'm afraid that the name Harry Potter isn't worth that much anymore. I failed to mention that to you, but I'm afraid that the new minister has been thorough in his search to you. The Muggles are looking out for you as well." He finished his summary and came to a stop in front of Harry. He laid a hand on his shoulder that would be comforting in any other situation, but Harry shuddered at the touch.

"So," Damien said casually. "It's my word against a man without an identity, who is wanted, and who happened to have smuggled quite a lot of highly illegal product in the past few days. I would go on describing how this all would go, but I think you get the picture, don't you?" He squeezed his shoulder a bit harder, his eyes glittering, full of energy. Harry saw teeth through the thick beard as he continued. "Plus, I can assure you that you wouldn't even make it to the police station. I don't want to make this unpleasant for the both of us, but I _will_ if you make me."

Harry swallowed, and finally let the door knob go. "What are you going to do to me?" he asked.

"That depends, doesn't it?" Damien wondered, relenting the grip on his shoulder. "To be honest with you: I was afraid at first that you've found me out, that you were here on Auror duty. I thought your mysterious disappearance might have been a part of an operation. But a few things don't add up. Your refusal to do magic, for one. Do you even have a wand on you?"

Before Harry could object, Damien pulled out his wand, and summoned Harry's, who could only watch on helplessly as his holly wand slipped from his pocket and sailed into the man's waiting hand.

"You _did_!" he said, looking at the wand with narrowed eyes. "Interesting. Very interesting. But correct me if I'm wrong: you're not here on Auror duty, are you?"

Harry didn't reply. Damien was far too close for comfort, but he didn't dare to move.

"No, your arrest warrant really wasn't for show, was it?" he mused. Then understanding flooded in his eyes. "You ran away, didn't you? I had wondered… Harry Potter disappeared, Hermione Granger taken to the hospital… Oh." He cocked his head and looked at him with what might have been sympathy, were it not for the mirth dancing in his eyes. "You ran away with your tail between your legs. What happened? Is the child yours and did her fiancé find out? Or did you hurt her accidentally?"

"Shut up," Harry said, balling his fists in an attempt to restrain his anger.

"Did I hit a sensitive spot there? Are you angry that I've discovered that you'd rather suffer homelessness and hunger than face the consequences of your actions? Harry, Harry, Harry," he taunted, still with that easy smile. "You're a mess. Now come on, you need to eat, and you need to sleep well tonight. I've got some friends I'd like you to meet tomorrow."

* * *

But Harry hardly ate anything that evening, nor did he close an eye that night. He watched rain splatter against the big window, and the pale light of the lamppost flicker behind leaves and branches that were tossed around in the stormy night.

Doubt racked his head. He tossed and turned but was never able to get comfortable. His head itched, it was cold, and he endlessly asked himself why he didn't just jump out the window and run away. But Damien knew who he was. He'd known all along, and he'd made Harry commit a serious crime. And on top of that, he was a wanted man, in both the Muggle and the Magical world.

But even then, a nasty voice inside his head said to him, even if he wasn't wanted, he still knew that he would never find the will nor the energy to escape. He had lost that over the past few days. Finding out that Damien was not who he appeared to be was the last blow. His limbs would never cooperate enough to carry him far enough.

So he had no choice but to wait and see what was in store for him.

He didn't eat any breakfast either, even though Damien assured him that he hadn't poisoned it.

"I have much better use for you," he'd said. It wasn't very reassuring.

Damien cleared the table, and Harry followed him into the hallway. But after he'd put his shoes on and risen up again, he was suddenly faced with a wand that pointed at him, millimetres from his cheek. His eyes flicked from the wand to Damien's expressionless face.

"Let's get a few things strange before I introduce you," he said. "First of all: you're Dudley Dursley. Got that?"

Harry stared at him, but sucked in a breath when Damien pressed his wand into his cheek.

" _Got that?"_ he hissed.

"Yes," Harry mumbled, trying and failing to break eye contact.

"Good," Damien said, jaws clenched. "Second: you do exactly as I say, without protesting. Got that as well?"

"Yes."

"You'd better keep yourself to those promises, Harry. If you don't, I will expose you. If you don't, I will kill you, only after I've gone after your friends first. You're mine now."

They stood there, unmoving. Then Damien grabbed him by his collar and they Disapparated without a warning.

They appeared in a small courtyard. The fences were dilapidated, as was the small, grey, flat-roofed building. It reeked of piss and weed. The little he saw of Belfast, he established, was not its most pleasant side.

"We're walking the last bit." Damien said, never letting go of him. "Just so you get used to the surroundings. You're gonna be here a while, sunshine." Then he pushed him ahead, towards the exit of the yard, where Harry could hear faint sounds of traffic.

And then he found himself next to a busy two-way street. Cars were stuck in traffic as far as the eye could see, occasionally alternated by large buses, and the pavements were full of people as well.

"Crumlin Road," Damien said from behind Harry, finally relenting the grip on his collar. "Turn right, keep following the road until I tell you to stop."

Harry saw no other option than to obey the man. Scowling and slouching in the rain, he set off. They first passed a modern hospital, then a castle-like, red-bricked building, that rather looked like an old mental asylum. A religious figure (he had no clue who it was supposed to be) stood above the symmetrical entrance, looming over it.

"See that building there?" Damien asked, speeding up to walk next to him, and then pointing at a structure in the distance that looked like a palace. It stood uphill from where they were, and curtains of rain gave it an eerie, strangely unnatural feeling that he couldn't place at first.

"What is it?" he asked Damien.

"You'll see," he replied, excitement evident in his voice.

As they got closer, Harry noticed more and more details that explained his initial aversion to the building: bushes growing out of broken windows, paint that fell off, and a completely overgrown wrought iron fence that closed the surrounding property off. The scowling public quickly walked past it, barely glancing at its rundown exterior.

It must have been beautiful, once. It was designed like a Roman palace, with a symmetrical, grand layout. White pillars half-embedded in the wall rose up from the foundation, separating every identical section, supporting a classical, fringed roof. And as they finally got closer to the front of the property, he saw the enormous entrance: round pillars standing around the doorway like bars in a prison, reaching up to a triangular overhang, where the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom graced the front. Above, pointing up at the iron grey sky with her sword, was Lady Justice. But everything was tainted by the wear of time. The windows were either broken or shielded off with black screens, and the ornamental white frames didn't fare much better. The pillars of the Roman entrance had brown smudges that reached an impressive height, and the terrain around the building, which must have looked fabulous at one point, was now reduced to concrete that was being eaten up by grass and weeds. There was also an orange traffic cone randomly placed in front of the building.

"Here we are, then," Damien announced, tugging on Harry's shoulder to pull him to a stop.

"Looks completely abandoned," Harry said. "Fidelius and Muggle Repelling Charms?" He slid his hands into his pockets to hide how much they were shaking now. His heart was pounding in his throat, but he didn't want the man to see through his air of nonchalance.

"Right you are on both accounts," Damien said, squeezing his shoulder. He opened the rusty gate with a metallic screech that hurt his ears, and led him in. He then fished a scrap of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Harry.

" _The Buckriders Headquarters is at 54 Crumlin Road, Belfast,"_ it read.

And when Harry looked up, the smudges and damaged spots on the paint vanished, the glass windows repaired themselves, and the encroaching weeds and grass receded to their designated boxes again. The bushes that sprouted from the roof disappeared as well, the damaged window frames were restored and the pillars separating the sections were as white as they used to be again. And the entrance changed as well: the royal coat of arms morphed, the lion and the unicorn became two horns, protruding imposingly from a white skull of a goat that had replaced the four kingdoms that were combined under the royal arms. And Lady Justice was no longer there, instead the scales and sword were carried by hunched, hooded figure riding a buck, its mantle fluttering behind it in an imagined soaring wind.

"Welcome," Damien said, pulling Harry along towards the entrance, "to the headquarter of the Buckriders. Now get inside. I've gathered everyone in today for your initiation, so don't be shy. You'll fit in before you know it. And erm…" he squeezed Harry's arm extra hard for emphasis as he leaned in closer to whisper in his ear. "Do anything suspicious, anything at all that gives me just an _inkling_ that you're trying to escape, and I'll let everyone know what your _real_ name is. I can assure you, you're not loved in this part of town. Got it?"

Harry nodded mutely, refusing to meet the man's eyes. He cast one last look at the street. People and cars went by, and no one looked their way.

They took the last few steps towards the heavy arched doors, and even though his mind screamed at him to tear himself from Damien's grasp and run away, he didn't.

Damien made him push open the doors himself. They opened with a loud creak, and Harry was pushed inside a large, warmly-lit entrance hall. His breath hitched in his throat as the wafts of murky heat greeted him.

Hordes of people surrounded him on all sides as they congregated in the spacious, tall room, chatting in groups among each other. So far, they were oblivious to Harry and Damien's entrance, and Harry, who found it hard to breathe in this warm, oppressive environment, frantically tried to assess who these people were. Some wore wizarding robes, but most of them were dressed in easy-going Muggle clothes. He saw jeans, shirts and jackets, but most of all baggy training pants and poorly fitting rain coats.

His inspections were interrupted when Damien produced a few loud _bangs_ with his wand, and the buzzed chattering died down.

"Can't you use sparks next time, Damien? I'm gonna be deaf in two years if you keep that up!" someone shouted. It was followed by muted laughs, but Harry was more distracted by the many unabashed stares that were sent his way. An uncomfortable prickle travelled down the entire length of his spine as he felt increasingly trapped in the many assessing, hostile gazes, and he tried to skulk backward, towards the nearest wall, but there were people there as well. Then he felt a set of hands on his back, shoving him further into the room as he let out a panicked shout that echoed in the sudden buzzing silence. Mute laughter was the response and Harry felt his cheeks heat up.

"I'll consider it next time, Boris," Damien said, chuckling. "Good morning, everybody. I've gathered you here today, because I'd like to welcome a new member in our midst. Everyone, this is Dudley. Say hello, Dudders!"

But Harry still could not find enough air, and still his heart wouldn't settle.

"Bit shy, are you? I found poor Dudley near the ferry docks, having a brawl with a smack addict. I pulled them apart, and asked Dudley where he was from. His story fits right in here, isn't that right, Dudley?" He took a few steps towards Harry and patted him on the shoulder. "This bloke, well, he's a Squib. He was living happily as a Muggle, but then he got laid off as a security member, he lost his home, lost his wife, and ended up on the streets. We've talked a lot, and he thinks he's ready to join the family and find his new home here. So…" he clapped his hands, the sound echoing around the hall. "Who wants to welcome him to the family?"

Excited chatter rose up in the gathered crowds as they turned to each other. Some shook hands, some exchanged a few galleons or pound notes, and Harry could only conclude that he was about to get roughed up. What the people wanted to know, was whether he could take it or not. The crowd moved, shuffled around, and created a ring surrounding Damien and Harry.

"I'll do it," a rough voice called, and a man in shabby wizarding robes stepped forward. He met Harry's eyes, and Harry saw a flash of bright amber. _Werewolf_ , he thought.

"Me too," said another, and Harry saw a pale, red-haired man, short and chubby, join the werewolf in the empty space at the centre of the hall.

A dark-skinned boy, who looked no older than sixteen, and a woman with inky black hair stepped forward as well. Harry's heart pounded in his throat as he stood facing the four grim-looking people.

"That's four, perfect," Damien said, stepping backwards. "Just the wands this time, I think." He drew his wand and cast a protective charm around Harry and the four others, and a hushed silence descended upon them all.

Harry tensed his muscles, ready to jump out of the way. Part of him ached to draw the Elder Wand from the hidden holster on his left arm. But he knew he would never touch the foul thing anymore, let alone use it. Not to mention that Damien would probably kill him right on the spot.

The werewolf and the dark-skinned boy approached him slowly, and then the girl cast the first spell. A bludgeoning charm, and Harry could only narrowly step aside as the spell shot past him and impacted Damien's protective circle.

Then the werewolf cast a spell, and Harry avoided the blue curse, but it put him directly in the path of another spell. It hit him directly in the stomach, pushing all the air out of his lungs, and he bent over, clenching his eyes shut in pain. He was struck in the back and felt something cut through his jacket, into his skin. Another spell hit him in the head, and the whole world turned sideways as he tumbled to the ground.

"Let him get up, let him get up," one of them said, and two arms hooked under his armpits, dragging him to his feet again.

"Stand up, ye fecker. We'll make you a worthy member yet," the person hissed in his ear.

He barely had the time to stand on his own strength when he was hit with another cutting curse, this time sending a searing pain through his leg. The agony increased with every spell, and it all blurred into one as he once again fell to the ground. He tried to push himself up, but his arms had lost all strength. And then he was pulled up again, but his wounded legs could not support him anymore, and he was held up by two strong arms as his body was tortured by spell after spell. He lost his vision, and the strong coppery taste of blood filled his drooling mouth…

"Alright, lads, he's had enough," the person holding him up called, and the spellfire stopped at once. "You're okay, friend. You did good. Welcome to the family, brother," the man said, his mouth uncomfortably close to his ear.

Harry felt the two arms slip away from him, and he sunk to the ground.

"Get up! C'mon, on your feet!" he heard the werewolf bark at him, but every last bit of strength had been pushed from his body. He blindly placed his hands on the floor and got to his knees before he gave up, and sank down again, his cheek pressed against the cold stone tiles, either drool or blood running freely from his open mouth.

He was dimly aware of being dragged away, out of the room. The footsteps and unintelligible mumbling didn't reverberate anymore. Then he was laid down on something soft, and by the sounds of the people talking around him, he was being inspected.

"Shoulder is dislocated."

"Yeah, he's losing a lot of blood from his leg as well. Oh, fuck, his eye is bleeding!"

"Let me take a look at that." Harry recognised this voice. It was Damien's. He felt his hot breath on his face as he leaned over to inspect his eye. "Probably just a burst vein in his socket, look, it's swelling up underneath his eye. Can you see, Dudley?"

Harry tried to make a sound, but he wasn't sure if they'd heard the faint croaking.

"Just nod or shake your head, mate, can you see?"

He shook his head just a tiny bit. It was all he could manage.

"Well, that's no good. We need to get someone to look at him, then."

A strange distance grew between him and the voices, and gradually Harry stopped understanding what they said as he sunk away into darkness.


	7. Chapter 6

Harry woke up to an irritatingly invasive snapping sound. He squeezed his eyes shut, but it wouldn't go away. And then he heard a voice as well.

"… Dudley, c'mon, wake up. That's it. Can you open your eyes?"

It was Damien. Harry groaned as he slowly came to remember how he got here. The strange building; the crowd of witches and wizards; the initiation…

His cheek was slapped, and the sharp jolt of pain finally made him open his eyes. And he could see. Everything was blurry, as it always had been without his glasses on, but he could see.

"I can see!" he croaked.

"Well, there we are, then. Good to know the potion worked. How do you feel?"

"You utter bastard," Harry said, realizing once again the predicament that he was in as he saw the unclear shape of Damien towering above him.

"Good as ever, I suppose. Here are your glasses." He slid the glasses on Harry's nose, and his face came in full focus. "We need to buy you some new ones, by the way. Some of them here thought they recognised you."

"What did you tell them?" Harry asked, confused beyond reason about the fact that he was still talking like this to the man who had betrayed him and had pushed him in what for all intents and purposes seemed like a magical gang.

 _You don't have a choice_ , an irritating voice in the back of his head told him.

"I fibbed them off, and hit the loudest one with a ConfundusCharm. It would have been a lot harder to keep it secret if I didn't mask your scar beforehand. You should be thanking me on your knees, you know. I am betraying my – our – family here, to keep your identity safe. I'm breaking rule number one of the Buckriders."

"Like hell I'm thankful. You bloody tricked me into a gang, you son of a –" But Damien put his hand over Harry's mouth, cutting off his tirade. Harry tried to grab it and pull his grasp away, but his arms were underneath the blanket, and he found himself unable to move them. He moaned in frustration, but Damien's pressure on his mouth didn't lessen.

"Shh," he said at a softer tone, without removing his hand. "The room isn't warded, and the walls are not that thick everywhere. Are you gonna be quiet?"

Harry hesitated, still unsuccessfully trying to move his arms. Then, with immense reluctance, complied with Damien's order, and he nodded.

"Good," Damien said, finally removing his hand from Harry's mouth. "You're hurt quite badly, so try to take it easy. You'll get some food in about ten minutes, and there's a bathroom down the hall to your left, right at the end. And if you go one door further you'll find a bunch of showers. Alright? I'll be back tomorrow to take you to an optician. In the meantime, try not to make yourself too recognisable," To emphasise his point, he grabbed some of Harry's hair and tried to flatten it over his forehead. The amusement visible in his eyes told Harry that Damien knew full well how uncomfortable the caring, almost loving touch made him as he leaned fully over him, taking up his entire field of vision. Harry felt his warm breath on his face.

"Does your hair ever stay flat?" Damien asked, his gaze trailing from Harry's eyes to his forehead.

"No," Harry replied shortly, pushing his head as far into his pillow as he could.

"And if we grow it even longer?"

"Dunno."

"We'll have to try that, then. Maybe some hair dye as well…" his hands and eyes traced the contour of Harry's face towards his jawline. "Keep the beard in any case. And we'll buy you some clothes you don't normally wear, alright?" he patted Harry's cheek and finally leaned back again. "See you tomorrow, Dudders." Harry was sure the man had heard his sigh of relief, because his easy smile grew a bit wider.

Harry stayed there in bed long after Damien had left. He had neither the courage nor the drive to kick off the bedcover and exit his room. But his bladder could no longer wait, and as depressed as he felt, his self-respect hadn't sunk so deep that he would lower himself to wetting the bed. So it was that he moved his bruised, aching limbs and stepped out of bed. He swayed on the spot, his wounded legs not quite ready to support his full weight, and he had to grab one of the iron bed posts to stop himself from tumbling forward.

Gently, leaning against the wall, then the doorpost, he made it out of his chamber, and he found himself in a long, quite broad hallway. The marble tiles were cold under his bare feet, and had quite a few chips missing at the edges. The walls and ceilings were decorated with ornamental wooden panels and large wooden doors with graceful arches surrounding them. But here as well he noticed quite a few smudges and damaged bits. Apparently there was no professional renovators among the people inside this protected building. That, or they didn't care enough to keep the building spotless. There were no windows in this hallway, and so he had no idea where exactly he really was. After careful stumbling, with a steadying hand tracing the walls, he reached another wooden door at the end of the hallway.

He didn't know what to expect, but at least the simple toilet and sink were clean. It smelled nice too. There was even a small towel with flower motifs. The floor was made of brown tiles, and it looked as if this room was modified later. Somewhere in the seventies, judging by the distinctly brown decoration. In any other circumstance, Harry would have been curious about the history of this place.

It was almost going well, but when he stood up again, a burst of pain shot through his ribs. He made it back to his chamber with considerable difficulty, walking almost folded over to avoid feeling the pain in his ribcage again. Cursing his helplessness under his breath, he closed the door to his room and stumbled back to his barred iron bed.

He laid back down and curled up with a soft moan of pain. Not long after that the door opened, and a man stepped inside. It was the ginger boy who had participated in the initiation, and Harry tensed up as he approached him with a steaming bowl in his hand.

"Oh, calm down, I'm not gonna hurt you, I'm jus' here to bring you some food," he said, his voice sharp and warbling like that of a teenager. He smiled at Harry, confusing him to no end, and placed the bowl of soup on the simple bedside cabinet.

"I'm Oliver, by the way," he added.

Harry furrowed his brow. "Pleasure."

"Look, don't worry too much about what happened yesterday, alrigh'? Jus' part of becoming a member of the family, is all. Jus' give it a rest, and you'll be up and running before ye know it. D'you want some tea?"

Harry blinked.

"Erm… yes please," he said after a short pause, realizing halfway through the silence that the boy had asked him a question.

"Be right back then."

The boy returned a minute or two later with a mug of tea.

"Here you go. My room's just down the hall, by the way. And if you want some more to eat, jus' go downstairs and to the right, there's a big kitchen down there. Alright?"

"Thanks," Harry said, still bewildered that the boy who had tried to kill him yesterday was now having trying to have an easy conversation with him.

"Don't worry about it. I'll see you around, yeah?"

Harry eventually gathered the will to sit upright and grab the bowl of soup. It looked like a thick mushroom soup, and after the first spoonful, he had to conclude that it was actually good, if a bit too salty. He ate until it was half-empty.

There was a small window behind his head-rest, he then realized. He clumsily turned around and got to his knees in his bed to look outside and saw a darkening sky against a sea of city-lights. Into the distance crawled a stream of yellow and red lights of an evening traffic jam.

He laid back down to give his body some more rest and considered what to do next. He could go out and look around the building of the gang, or he could simply stay here and avoid company. He chose the latter after not much consideration and spent the rest of his time watching the outside light that reflected against the walls fade away, as the half-empty bowl of soup slowly became stale. Sometime during that eternal boredom, he closed his eyes, and drifted into a deep, dark, dreamless slumber.

* * *

The soup was still there by the time he woke up the next day. It had a murky brown colour and the viscous goop stuck to his spoon as he tried to stir it. The whole room stank of stale food.

It was only ingrained automatism that made him get up and go to the loo. As he sat down and let it stream, he saw the state that region of his body was in and he decided that it was high time for a shower. He stumbled to the next room, grabbed one of the towels from the neat pile on a plank next to the door, and stepped inside a cubicle.

The warm water cascaded down his body, and he breathed in sharply as it came in contact with his many half-healed cuts and bruises. He took the soap bottle that was already there ("five purposes in one bottle! Brush your teeth as you wash your hair!") and gingerly washed the old grime from his sensitive skin.

Gradually, the pain faded away, and so his dimmed thoughts started wandering. He leaned against the wet tiled wall, letting the water run off his back as image on image of what had happened the past few days were pulled through his mind, like beads on a rosary that were pulled through his head one by one. The frenzied fight with the smack-addict, and Damien's convenient entry… Those long days in Damien's house… Seeing the white powder through the small gap in the cardboard box…

He lost all track of time as he was lost in his musings, and his fingertips were wrinkled by the time he turned off the tap. The towel was course against his skin, which had dried up a lot in the shower.

 _Should probably stop earlier next time_ , he thought. He wrapped the towel around his waist and made his way back to his room with his light-blue pyjamas in his hand, feeling horribly out of place as he walked around the ornamental hallway with just a towel wrapped around his waist.

Damien entered the room soon after he'd dressed himself in the same old clothes he'd worn the past few days.

"Morning, Dudders!" he said jovially, trotting in and closing the door behind him. He ignored Harry's lack of reply. "Is that soup from yesterday?" he asked, pointing at the cup on the night stand.

"Yes."

"We'll drop it off at the kitchens on our way out then. Have you been there already?"

"All I've done here is lie in bed and sleep," Harry replied shortly.

"Well, that sounds awfully boring. So, you haven't had breakfast yet?"

"I'm not really hungry," he said, shrugging.

"Alright, let's go, then. C'mon, we've got a lot to do. Best not waste any time. Oh, and just one second." He put himself between Harry and the door just as Harry was walking towards it, and leant forward, their noses almost touching.

"Do not try anything funny today," he said lowly, squeezing Harry's cheeks with one hand, forcing him to meet his eyes. "If you do, I will put you down like the stray dog that you are. Got that?" He didn't wait for Harry's reply, but opened the door and out they stepped.

They walked through the corridors, Harry trudging behind Damien, noticing the spring the man had in his step as they descended down the grand central staircase that ended in the hallway. Damien disappeared through a door on their right for a moment to drop off the half-emptied soup bowl, and while he was gone, Harry felt the prickling sensation as curious eyes of a few people loitering there looked his way. He did his best to avoid their gaze until Damien came back to guide him outside.

"I'm gonna Apparate us to the city centre. Grab my arm, please."

Harry reluctantly reached out and closed his hand around Damien's broad forearm. Immediately the space around them disappeared, and after a short burst of being squeezed through a thin tube, they appeared in a quiet courtyard.

The first thing Harry noticed was the smell coming from the bins nearby. Then he saw the mess of paper, wrappings and cigarette butts on the tiled ground. Everything was cast in the shadows of high buildings surrounding them.

"Right, no one saw us, so let's go," Damien said, dragging Harry along, out of the quiet area.

They emerged along a busy four-lane road, with shops lining the street. It was incredibly busy, and the pavement wasn't really wide enough for the stream of pedestrians.

"Probably shouldn't have picked a Saturday for our shopping trip," Damien said, leaning close to Harry to make himself heard. "But it does give us more privacy. In here, follow me."

They turned left, into a pedestrian-only road.

"We're close to the bus station," Damien commented. "Have you heard of Bloody Friday?"

"Yeah, I have," Harry said. "But it wasn't really covered in Hogwarts."

"Of course not," Damien said, anger seeping into his voice. "Anyway, we've got time, so let's go see it."

Harry, remembering the warning earlier, did not object, and instead followed Damien through the narrow streets until they arrived at the riverfront. They walked along the road parallel to the water for a while, until Harry saw an enormous metal sculpture of a woman holding up a ring, that stood next to a bridge crossing the water.

"Six people died here in 1972," Damien commented as they crossed the busy road and approached the sculpture. They came to a halt near it, but at a distance from the group of tourists that were busy taking pictures of it. Harry read the name _'Beacon of Hope'_ on the sign underneath the statue."It was one of the twenty or so bombs that went off that day. You couldn't imagine it now, could you?"

Harry looked around. The sun broke through for a moment, basking the waterfront, its benches, trees and crowds waiting for the bus in a short burst of bright winter sun.

"The feeling in this city is peaceful now, but the stories I was told by my mother, my uncles, anybody who lived through those times, those couldn't be further from this. We will never forget what happened here in our city."

They walked back into the city centre again. Harry cast one last glance over his shoulder at the sculpture as the sun disappeared behind the thick grey clouds again.

"There's an optician just down the road, so the first thing we're going to do today is buy you some new glasses," Damien said as they walked past the first row of shops that bordered the riverfront. "After that we'll go get some clothes, and then I'll introduce you to some contacts we have here. Get you acquainted with our network, cause you're gonna get to work soon enough." He talked without a care in the world, completely unbothered by the crowds around them.

"What kind of work?" Harry asked, although in his chest he felt a nauseating feeling that he was sinking deeper and deeper into something he wasn't going to out of again.

"Oh, a bit of this, a bit of that," Damien replied airily, only adding to Harry's worries.

They then reached the optician. They took measurements, concluded that his prescription hadn't changed since he last had his eyes checked, and then picked out new glasses. Harry simply wanted to keep his old glasses; but for the sake of hiding his identity, that wasn't an option. He resigned himself to trying on frame after frame that Damien handed to him. Eventually they settled on one with round lenses and thick, brown edges.

"I think you're going to need coloured contact lenses as well," Damien said as they exited the shop. Harry's stomach had rumbled loudly during the whole procedure, so they stepped inside a small fast food place next to the optician, and ordered a few bagels and some coffee.

"Where can we get those?" Harry asked as they sat down at a small grubby table by the window.

"I know an address. It's…" he glanced at the people eating lunch around them and leaned in closer. "They're… you know… but don't worry about them blabbing about having Harry Potter as a customer. I'll take care of it."

"How nice of you," Harry mumbled.

"Don't sweat it," he replied, never losing his chipper tone. "Eat your bagel, Dudley, we're going to buy you some hair dye next."

Harry stared at the soggy meal on the plastic tray before him, and resignedly decided that it was better than nothing.

After finishing their meal, they bought some brown hair dye at the drugstore, and then went on to assemble a whole wardrobe of new clothes. Damien enjoyed himself immensely as he picked out jogging trousers, thick hoodies, rain jackets, and generally everything Harry would never buy in a million years.

"Oh, Dudders, You'll make a fantastic thug!" he exclaimed in delight when Harry despondently stepped out of the fitting room, wearing a sweater, baggy jeans and black trainers.

The final step in Harry's metamorphosis were the brown-coloured contact lenses they bought from a small, obscure place in an alleyway further to the north. The entrance appeared out of nowhere in the red brick wall, and inside it was hard to breathe in the small, dimly-lit shop. The shopkeeper sold the lenses without any questions, and before Harry could take a good look at her, they were out again. Damien had a short, whispered, exchange with her, but Harry couldn't understand what they were saying.

"Well, Dudley, it's been fun today," Damien said when they were seated in a small café, under cover of a few privacy charms. "We've given you time off the past few days because you're new and you've just had your initiation, but tomorrow will be the start of your new career."

"Can you at least tell me what I'll be doing?" Harry asked, frustrated at the man's ambivalence throughout the day.

"I'll give you a brief introduction," Damien said, pausing to take a sip of his tea. "Or as brief as I can make it. Basically, we keep an eye out on this city, and we keep things running smoothly. There are plenty of Witches and Wizards here, just like any other big city in the UK, but the difference between London and Belfast is that the Ministry doesn't give a rat's arse about us, and so they leave us to our own devices. I think you know what happens when people with extraordinary powers are unrestrained by higher authorities above them."

"Nothing good."

"Nothing good indeed. I grew up in it, and it was horrible. There were three things that ran riot among the magical community here: the Ministry, the gangs, and You-Know-Who. All the people you saw in our Headquarters, they all lost friends and family to battles between gangs, who were left to run freely because there are never any Aurors here. Some were involved in them, others just happened to be out and about when a skirmish kicked off. Stray spells were especially deadly."

"And Voldemort?" Harry asked, finding some mean-spirited form of pleasure in watching Damien cringe at the mention of the name.

"You-Know-Who…" Damien sighed and took a sip of his tea. "He only added to the divisive and deadly gang wars in the seventies, during his first reign of terror. A few of his Death Eaters were part of one group that specialised in powerful Love Potion trades and some other potions that would make your stomach turn. Quite literally in some cases. So, naturally, their competitors died one by one. The Aurors didn't know what the hell was going on here, of course, but they did know that violence was increasing." He leaned in closer, allowing Harry to get an up-close view of the bags under his eyes and the few strands of grey in his thick, square beard. "They hunted us down like dogs, Harry. Ministry and You-Know-Who alike. Ten long, rainy, miserable years, treated like vermin. As the war progressed, Aurors got free reign, desperate as they were to stop the violence. You know what happens if the authority looks the other way, don't you?"

"I've read the Excess Notes," Harry said.

Damien gripped his mug tighter with shaking hands and looked ready to hit something. "That excuse for a report is a lie!" he barked. Some people in the café looked up in surprise, despite the privacy charms. "Look at the name already: Excess Notes! The Ministry refused to admit that they acted like beasts. They're basically saying "yeah, some of our lads behaved a bit rash, but other than that we were saints." Rubbish!" he spat.

"How bad was it, then? If you think what I know is wrong, then tell me what really happened," Harry urged, intrigued despite his hatred for the man.

Damien sighed and put his elbows on the table, leaning on them with all his weight. "My father was in a group that traded some stuff that was hard to come by," he said in a low voice, throwing back the rest of his coffee and placing the cup down harshly. "Not Love Potions, not smack or Dream Grass, just some stuff that was hard to get. Boomslang skin, Bowtruckle shavings, that sort of exotic stuff you normally pay more than a month's wage for. He was killed not long after I was born, in 1978. Stray spell, like I told you, or that was what they told me."

"You don't believe that," Harry noticed.

"My mother wanted to shield me from the grim truth as much as she could," Damien said, and Harry saw a twitch under his eye. "But I always knew there was more. Only when she laid on her death bed during the Second War some ten years later, she finally told me that my father was not my real father."

"Then who—"

"Some Auror," he snapped, looking Harry straight in the eye, for one moment showing his true rage. "Some animal who…" His yellow teeth shone through his beard for a moment. He breathed out shakily and continued at a level tone. "I've seen the true face of the Ministry, Harry. Do you still wonder why I am who I am?"

"I—"

"Things calmed down after you vanquished You-Know-Who," Damien continued without pause, "but a man named Conor Jones realised that this city was going to tear itself at the seams if this situation continued. Great man, Conor. You know, they used to call him "Lucifer"? Kind of fitting for the man who formed The Buckriders. He convinced every single person he could find to join him and put an end to this tyranny of violence once and for all. No more splinter groups for every illegal and hard-to-get substance. No more Witches and Wizards sleeping under the bridge and getting violated and murdered in their sleep by rivals or Death Eaters looking for a bit of fun. No more street fights and subsequent breaches of the Statute of Secrecy, cause that was the only thing that would draw the Ministry here, with all consequences that that entailed. You'll see how many people agree with that idea, how many are drawn to our society, so that they can prevent what had happened in the past. Talk to them, Harry. Ask them what moved them to join us, what this world, this Ministry has done to them."

"What you're talking about," Harry began, "and I don't know how much of it is true; but that part of the Ministry is exactly what we were trying to root out under Kingsley's reign. Believe me, Damien, I know it was bad, we all did. That's why Kingsley and I kicked the entire old guard out."

"And yet I haven't noticed any change in the way the Ministry acts towards us. Aurors are still just as oppressive against us."

"Well, maybe that has something to do with the fact that you're a criminal gang."

"One that wouldn't have existed if it weren't for the Ministry."

"The _old_ Ministry."

"Whatever. Get up, we're done here."

* * *

They didn't go straight back to the Buckriders, but instead stopped by Damien's house. There Harry was thrown into the upstairs bathroom along with the hair dye and the lenses, as well as the order to make himself unrecognisable.

After reading the instruction on the packaging of the dye, Harry wrapped a towel around his neck, brushed his hair and beard thoroughly, noticing how long it was all becoming.

 _At least it'll cover the grey_ , he thought, rubbing his sideburns where the colour was leaving his hair.

He then wrapped a towel around himself by the shoulders and smeared the mixture into his hair and all over his beard. Then he waited. After half an hour of staring at the ingredients lists of all the soap bottles in the bathroom and trying to ignore the feeling that he was only bringing himself into more trouble with every passing minute, he stepped into the shower and washed off the excess dye.

By the time he stepped out of the shower, his skin was tinged red and flaky again, thoroughly depleted of bacteria and oils. And when he looked in the mirror, he was startled by how different the brown hair and beard made him look. Damien entered the room by the time he'd put in the brown contact lenses and wrapped a towel around himself. He paused in the doorway as he saw Harry's face in the mirror.

"Hello, gorgeous," he then said, stepping further into the room as he stood next to Harry, both of them facing the mirror. "This is perfect. People who know you well will probably still recognise you, but it should be enough to prevent any suspicion from everyone else."

A pause. Harry blinked a few times, still not used to how the thick lenses felt on his eyes.

"Why are you doing this to me, Damien?" he asked.

"There's a question," Damien replied with his trademark slight amusement. "Maybe revenge for all the misery the Ministry has caused me and my family? Make you feel what it's like being us? Or maybe for the sheer irony of making grand and famous Harry Potter know what it feels like to be on the other side of the equation, so far underneath the upper classes that make up our magical society? So many choices, I hardly know which one to pick!" Then he slapped Harry's towel-covered bum. "Either way, I just couldn't resist you, could I?"

"Forget I asked," Harry murmured. "Can I get dressed now?"

"Of course! It's almost dinner time anyway. I'll Apparate you to the headquarters. There are always some others there to share a meal with, so it's a perfect time for you to start making friends."

He then left the bathroom again, leaving Harry with that same sense of foreboding he'd felt for the past couple of days now as he dressed himself in a sweater and a pair of jeans.

They Apparated into the entrance hall of the headquarters, which was deserted at that moment. Damien didn't let go of his shoulder immediately, and drew him in closer.

"Remember what I told you," he said lowly. "Talk to people, ask them what their story is. See for yourself, and then ask yourself if we're really that evil. And don't tell them your real identity. They won't ask questions about your metamorphosis, mainly cause you're not the only one here who has gone through one."

Harry nodded, and then went upstairs to drop off the pile of purchases. As he stood there in the middle of his room, he briefly contemplated simply staying here and giving in to the bitter grief he felt that slumbered close to the surface nearly all the time. But his rumbling stomach brought an end to the dilemma.

He slowly descended the broad and ornamental staircase, grazing the stucco walls on the side with the tips of his fingers. The kitchen was a large rectangular room, with dark brown floor tiles, and a set of tall windows on the far end wall, overlooking an overgrown and wasted bed of flowers. And in the middle of the kitchen stood a long banquet table. Several chairs were occupied.

"Ah, the new one!" exclaimed one, standing up and approaching Harry. The man was short, broad, and exceptionally hairy, and his handshake was uncomfortably firm. "Good to meet you in a better setting," he said. "Name's Thomas."

"Dudley," Harry said quietly, unsure of how to act.

"Welcome to the clan!" Thomas said with booming voice. "Come, sit! We were about to start a game of exploding snap."

Harry followed him and slowly sat down in the chair he pulled out for him. He flinched when a woman with striking white hair slapped him on the back.

"Brenda," she said warmly. "I can hardly see those bruises anymore. You alright?"

"Yeah."

"Good!"

The four others, excluding Oliver, who he'd met already, also introduced themselves. One of them, named Albert, had participated in his initiation. He was pale, had brown hair that had almost the same colour of Harry's hair dye and all hostility of before was not visible anymore in his expression. His eyes did still flash amber from time to time.

"Soup, Dudley?" Brenda asked, standing up and walking towards the counter below the windows.

"Sure."

He declined joining the game and watched them play as he ate his soup.

"What kind of soup is this?" he asked, vaguely recognising the flavour.

"Dirigible plum soup," Brenda replied. "With courgette mixed in to make it a bit thicker."

"Oh," Harry said, his mind wandering to a sunlit tower-like home on the top of a grassy hill, just outside Ottery St. Catchpole.

"Taste good?"

"Yeah, it's good," he said quickly, eating a few more spoonfuls to prove it.

"You didn't look like you enjoyed it," Brenda said, with a hint of a question mark.

"Oh, it's…" He hesitated. "A good friend of mine used to make this a lot."

"You pick your friends well, then," she said approvingly. "But _"used to"_? What happened?"

Harry looked up to meet her eye, noticing the others pause in their game as well to listen in.

"She… her father died," he said slowly, as his eyes drifted towards her unnaturally white hair. "And that same week I left."

He felt Brenda's arm gently touch his shoulder, and he quickly had to swallow to prevent the pent-up grief from rising up and pouring out at the caring gesture.

"I had to leave my home as well," Thomas said. "Wish I'd paid more attention when my wife made her strawberry pudding. I tried to recreate it here, but erm…"

"Lydia threw up because of it," a gaunt man said, a grin spreading on his thin, pale face.

"Lydia threw up because she tried to outdrink Brenda the previous evening, Bobby," Thomas replied icily.

"But your pudding was the catalyst," Bobby argued.

"Listen–" Thomas began.

"Your card's going to…" Brenda interjected, which was followed by a loud _crack_ and a burst of smoke clouding around Thomas. "… explode."

"So you and Damien bought your new wardrobe today?" she then asked, turning to Harry again as the others laughed at Thomas, who was entirely concealed in thick, grey smoke.

"Yeah," Harry said, unenthusiastically running his fingers over his new black hoodie.

"It suits you," she said approvingly. "So did he tell you anything about what we are, and what we do and all that?"

"Not really," he said. Bobby finished shuffling the cards and handed them to the others. "He did kind of explain the history, though."

"Oho," said another, who'd introduced himself as Patrick. "Straight in it with the heavy stuff, I presume?"

"He spared me the details."

The others shared a dark look.

"Anyway, what we do is quite simple," Thomas said, placing a card on the pile in the middle. "We keep things calm here. Look out for each other, make sure we know what's going on in the city. The Ministry won't do it, but someone's got to."

"So that means we basically patrol a lot," the one furthest away from him added in. "Day and night."

That didn't quite match the terrible scenarios Harry had envisioned. But he presumed that they had only begun to explain their activities.

"Why the headquarters, though?" he asked.

"Where else could we stay?" Thomas asked. "Where would you? Would you prefer sleeping under the bridge?"

Harry shook his head.

"For better or worse, we've got nowhere else to go. It was quite easy to get this up and running as well. This used to be a justice court, but it went out of use a long time ago. All that needed to be done, really, was some cleaning and repairing, which isn't that hard if you're a wizard."

 _Unless Mrs Weasley forbids use of magic_ , Harry thought, thinking back with a pang of nostalgia to that summer before his fifth year at Hogwarts.

"Did you know, by the way, that there's a tunnel leading from here to the old gaols across the road?" Bobby said. He grinned. "Convicts would go straight from their sentencing to jail, without even seeing the last daylight before being locked up."

"So where do you get the money from to afford the food and clothes and all?" Harry asked.

"Drugs," Brenda said unabashedly. "Drugs and potions ingredients."

Harry thought back to the addict who tried to kill him when he first arrived here.

"Think of it this way," she continued, clearly noticing his troubled expression. "The demand is there anyway. If we don't do it, someone else will sell it. In fact, that used to be the case before we were around, and all that it led to was gang warfare. That's not the case anymore, because we now have the monopoly in this city. We've made it better for everybody, and that's a price I'm damn well willing to pay."

"You don't look so comfortable with this," Bobby said to Harry.

"I…" Harry began, hesitating as everyone turned towards him expectantly. "I've seen what drug addiction does to people, and I've also seen more than enough of the dark side of things like Polyjuice Potions and Love Potions." He breathed in, looking down at the shaking spoon in his hand to avoid their challenging gazes. "But I've also seen more than enough violence in my lifetime."

"Then you understand it perfectly," Thomas put in, and Harry breathed out quietly, hoping his discomfort was not noticed by the others.


	8. Chapter 7

Harry hardly closed an eye that night instead he spend many hours fretting about the words he'd said while he tossed and turned underneath the thin blanket. He couldn't shake off the tainted feeling that lingered after his conversation with the others that evening. Neither did the overly long shower the next morning.

After reluctantly getting dressed in his new clothes, he went downstairs again to the kitchen, and sat down next to Brenda and Thomas.

"Morning," he murmured.

"Morning," Brenda replied with a lot more energy. She pointed to a woman sitting across them. "Dudley, say hi to Lydia. Lydia, this is Dudley."

"The new one? Didn't lose his sight after all, then?" Lydia said. Harry shook her extended hand, noting her exceedingly firm grip, her grey eyes and excessive make-up on her face.

"Lydia, from the pudding?" Harry asked. Her grip, if possible, tightened even more, and then she let go.

"Don't antagonise her too much," Tomas said, grinning. "You just might end up having to patrol together with her, and I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you."

Lydia did not break eye contact, raising one brow challengingly. He chose to examine breakfast instead.

"It depends on what he brings to the table," she said, still staring at him. He noticed her accent was different from the others. It sounded Scouse, but it was hard to tell from the two short sentences she'd said.

"We'll see, starting today," Thomas said, mercifully giving Harry a chance to break eye contact with her. "Dudley, you're with me. I'm gonna show you around the western part of town today, introduce you to the contacts there, and show you how we work day to day."

"Alright."

"Eat, we're leaving in thirty minutes."

"I'm leaving now," Lydia announced, standing up from the table and walking away without saying good-bye. A man with facial hair that rivalled Thomas' suddenly appeared by her side on the way out. Harry watched them leave until they were out of sight.

"She hates everyone," Brenda said. "I wouldn't worry about her too much."

"But don't get in her way if you have to do patrols together. Bit of a short temper on that one," Thomas added.

"But you trust her?"

"I trust no one," Thomas said offhandedly. "But neither does she, so we get along."

* * *

Those words stayed in his head during breakfast and as they left the headquarters. Thomas opened the fence for him with a flick of his wand. As soon as the gate closed behind them (none of the Muggles passing by on the early misty morning paid any mind), the building reverted back to its disguised state.

"See the building across the street?" Thomas said, drawing Harry's attention away from the Buckriders' logo morphing back into the British coat of arms, and to where the man was pointing at.

Just like the headquarters, it was styled like a Roman temple. Stretching out on either side was a dark stone wall.

"That used to be the gaol," Thomas explained. "They moved the prisons to the south, just outside Belfast, and this is now a tourist hotspot. You'll see plenty of buses arrive and leave here with hordes of tourists. It's supposed to be a good example of what prisons looked like in the old days, but I tell you what: it's nothing compared to Azkaban."

"How well do you know Azkaban?" Harry asked.

"Well enough," Thomas replied shortly, and he set off. Harry chose not to ask any further questions, and instead trailed behind the man as they walked down the long road.

"This here is Crumlin Road. It goes all the way into the centre, which is why it's always full of cars," Thomas explained. Harry was only briefly surprised when he fished a cigarette out of his pocket. He lit it up simply by snapping his fingers near the end of it, unconcerned with the Muggles walking past them. No one seemed to notice, though.

"Want one?" he asked, sticking another out to Harry.

"I don't smoke, thanks."

They walked further in silence, past rows of identical red-bricked houses.

"Where are we going, exactly?" Harry asked eventually, unable to hide his curiosity any longer.

"First off, we're gonna say hi to Nick. He lives a bit further west, and he keeps an eye out for us there. Then we'll have a cup of coffee."

"And then?"

Thomas shrugged. Some of the ash of his cigarette landed in his long beard. "One thing at a time, Dudley."

They passed a church that towered above the rows of houses, and then moved away from the main road they'd been walking on. Harry recognised this area almost immediately. As the place where he'd gone to deliver a package for Damien a few days ago. The hairs on his neck raised up when he thought back to that day, and he vividly recalled the piercing gaze of the cat that saw him while he was there. He was about to mention it to Thomas, but the comment died on his lips when he realized he to him, he was Dudley, and not Harry.

 _Best not tell them too much_ , he thought. _It's not like they're very open either._

They stopped at one of the small houses at the beginning of the long street, the same dishevelled one Harry had visited earlier, and Thomas rang the bell. A dog barked.

"Hush!" it sounded again from inside.

Then the door opened and the man, Nick, appeared. His suspicious expression immediately vanished when he was who were there.

"Good to see ya, Tom," he said. They firmly shook hands, and then Nick turned to Harry.

"And Dudley!" he said jovially. He extended a hand, which Harry took reluctantly. "I knew I'd see you again, friend. Well come in, then."

They entered the house and found themselves in a cramped hallway. Thomas was a big man, Nick even bigger, so that left little space for Harry. He listened closely for any other sounds in the house as they shuffled into a messy living room, but he heard nothing but the ticking paws of a dog.

"Have a seat," Nick said, flapping a meaty arm in the direction of a worn-out brown leather sofa that stood underneath the window.

Thomas and Harry sat down and were promptly approached by a white and brown-specked bulldog that reminded Harry violently of Aunt Marge.

"Don't worry about Tess," Nick said, who sat down in the sofa across them. "Only bites when I tell her to." He followed that up with a short burst of barking laughter and bared crooked, yellow teeth.

"Let's get down to business," Thomas said, leaning down to scratch Tess the bulldog behind her ears.

"Yes. And thanks again for the package this week, by the way," Nick said, who found the decency to pull his white polo down so that it covered up the bottom of his considerable belly again.

"All part of the deal," Thomas said. "How have you been, Nick?"

"Oh, same old, same old. Haven't been out too much. It's kind of boring, with the mist. Just doesn't stop, does it? Same weather every day."

"I have to say, I'm getting tired of winter as well," Thomas said.

"Oh, have you read the newspaper?" Nick interrupted. He leaned to his left to pick up the paper that was on top of the pile of newspapers, pizza boxes and unopened envelopes that reached up from the floor, just past the armrest. Lifting himself back up again was visibly straining. "Here, look: fucking Harry Potter, spotted in Belfast, just last week. Can you believe it?"

"Yeah, I've heard the rumours. Don't read newspapers, though." Thomas took the paper from Nick and skimmed through the front page. Harry watched in silence as he tried to keep his breathing even. "So it's saying a small girl recognised him? It doesn't really seem that substantial to me, I have to say."

"Where there's smoke, there's fire," Nick said. "That's what my Da always used to say."

"Yeah, but why would he be in Belfast, of all places? It doesn't really make sense."

"He's a wanted man, Tom. An' Belfast is a good place to hide. You two know that too well, am I right, Dudley?"

"I'm starting to," Harry said softly.

That was followed by a pause in the conversation. Harry glanced at the two men, trying to gain a bit more knowledge about what they were hinting at, but their glassy eyes weren't forthcoming.

"Anyway," Thomas then said, bringing his hands together in a business-like manner. "Seen anything else interesting?"

"Nah, it's been quiet lately. I thought the Ministry would be sending more Aurors now that that new one, Castlereagh, is fully in charge. But no, haven't really seen them."

"Me neither. It's probably a matter of time, though. He's been talking a lot about safety, after all," Thomas mused. "We'll see. What about the Muggles, then? I hear a boy has been shot last week?"

"Yeah." The smile slid from Nick's face, which at least covered up his unclean teeth. "Yeah, Alan. Awful, I tell you. I know his mam. Inconsolable. It wasn't even meant for him, you know? That's the worst part. She said he was just picking up some milk from the store, but apparently he walked in on two lads having an argument about something. Then one of them pulled a gun out, and..." He shook his head. "It's not been this bad in ages. This was just in clear daylight, Tom! Them Muggles, I tell you, they're nuts. I'm glad you lot have got the Magical side of town sorted, cause I wouldn't want to go back to the time when both worlds were in such chaos."

Conversation quickly rounded off after that, when it became clear that Nick didn't have anything else interesting to report, and Harry and Thomas soon said goodbye to the man again.

Five minutes later, the two sat in a small nearby coffee shop with cardboard cups of black coffee.

"What we just did at Nick's, that's basically the gist of what we do on patrols," Thomas explained after quickly casting privacy charms around the table. "We talk to people. We make sure they like us…"

"… By bribing them with drugs," Harry interjected. Thomas inclined his head in acknowledgement.

"Or potions, or animals, other information… Anything you can't buy at the stores. And we use their eyes to be aware of everything that happens in the city. Not only the Magical part, but also the Muggle part. Those two worlds are getting more and more intertwined these days, and we have to adapt to that. Last year, for example, the Muggle police cracked a human trafficking ring, here in the harbours. You must've heard about that, right? Cause you were a copper as well."

"No, I was stationed in London, but I did read about it in the papers," Harry lied.

"Ah, yeah, I guessed that from your accent. Anyway, while the suspects were in custody, they escaped again, but the police couldn't figure out how. No sign of forced entry, nothing, no keys missing… Of course, when the Aurors came to take a look, it immediately became clear to them that there was magic involved. Oh, so you _have_ heard of the case?"

Harry did suddenly remember the curious case. He wasn't personally involved in it, but Proudfoot had kept him up to date on the proceedings, and Thomas noticed his recognition.

"Yeah," Harry said, putting his hands under the table to conceal how much they suddenly shook. "I have magical family, right. A cousin told me about it, said it was pretty big news."

"Oh yeah, it was," Thomas said, accepting that explanation. "Like I said, the two worlds are getting more intertwined. This group of traffickers must've had a witch or wizard in their midst. They've been elusive ever since, so who knows what became of them."

They drank from their coffee.

"Why did Nick recognise you?" Thomas then asked.

Harry paused a moment before replying, considering how much he wanted to tell others about the events leading him here.

"Damien…" he began hesitantly. "He had me deliver something to him."

"As a test?" Thomas asked.

"Yeah."

"You're not comfortable with this part of our society," Thomas stated. It wasn't a question; they both knew the answer. "Don't worry, I won't expect you to right away. Just make sure you don't mess up because of your doubts and remember that we only do this out of necessity. No one wants to go back to how it was before."

A faraway look snuck into his eyes, then he shook his head and emptied his coffee cup.

"C'mon, drink your coffee. We've got a few other people to visit."

The rest of the day went by at walking pace as they ambled around the city, occasionally ringing at someone's door to have a quick chat. Harry quickly concluded that the atmosphere in the Magical part of the city was quiet, but that there was quite a lot of unrest among the Muggles. He heard stories of brawls, stabbings, discarded chemical waste from drug production. And everyone they visited hinted at past times with abject horror, but they all refused to go into detail.

"You've noticed, have you?" Thomas said when Harry asked him about it. "Aye, it's our collective little secret, I suppose. People just want to move on, leave it behind them. What's done is done, and there's no use talking about it. And remember that you're not getting to know the law-abiding nine-to-five folk here. From what I hear, this kind of thing happens in every city. You'd know about that as a copper, right? What's London like?"

"Has its rough areas," Harry said. Thomas, mercifully, accepted his silence and didn't ask any further questions.

* * *

The kitchen back at their headquarters was quite full again this evening, and Harry saw plenty of people he hadn't been introduced to yet. He and Thomas sat down at the far end of the table, joining Brenda and Lydia.

"Who do we have to thank for this godly pasta?" Thomas asked good-naturedly after his first few bites.

"Connor," Lydia said.

"Lucifer?" Harry asked, remembering what Damien had told him.

"No, Connor with two N's," she replied. "Damien somehow got him to cook meals again. Don't know how, won't ask either."

"Bless the heavens that he did, though," Brenda said, finishing her sentence by fitting a large spoonful into her mouth. Harry had to agree with their sentiments. The mood in the kitchen was raucous, and the more of the dish Harry hoovered up, the better he started to feel.

"Who's Connor?" he asked when he finished his plate.

"One of the older members here," Thomas replied between spoonfuls. Their heads turned to the other side of the kitchen. Harry followed their gaze and saw a pale, bald man sitting at the edge of the long table, eating quietly in solitude, his eyes downcast.

"He's been here for about ten years now," Brenda said. They looked back at their plate again, seemingly at once, and Harry followed suit. "Usually we know a little about each other. But Connor? All we know is that he used to be a chef before he joined here."

"My theory is that he's a cannibal," Lydia said, looking straight at Harry before slowly inserting a meatball into her mouth.

"We don't speculate, Lydia," Thomas warned. "Do you want us to do the same about you?"

"Guess away," she said offhandedly. "I can promise you that you won't even come close, so I don't really care either way."

Thomas sighed, and his expression conveyed deep disagreement.

"Look, Thomas, it's not my fault that you lot are easy to read. Take him for example." Without looking up, Harry realized she was talking about him. "I know immediately that he wasn't a copper before joining us. In fact, he's been so passive that I wonder if he has even worked a day in his life."

"Why are you like this to me?" Harry asked, dropping his spoon and looking up at her.

"I'm not talking to you, so keep your mouth shut," she snapped. Then, as if nothing happened, she turned back to an uncomfortable-looking Thomas. "And I think I know what crimes you've done to end up in Azkaban. Do you want me to run through my suspicions?"

"I'd rather you didn't," he murmured.

"I thought so. Why are you so afraid of being exposed if you know that everyone around you has done terrible things as well? Are you afraid we'll turn you in? Shun you for your heinous crimes?"

"You're taunting a convicted criminal," Thomas warned, still speaking softly. Harry and Brenda were silent onlookers in the argument, and their heads shot from Thomas to Lydia as it went on. The exchange went unnoticed by the other members, as they were too engrossed in their own pleasantly loud mood.

"Who are you trying to convince with that threat?" Lydia asked. Harry was convinced now that her accent was Scouse. "You know that half the men here at this table would love to jump at the opportunity to defend poor, sweet Lydia. Sadly for you, I don't think their lust extends to hairy, old men."

There was finally a pause in the argument.

"Anyone care for a smoky dessert outside?" Thomas then asked.

"Good idea," Brenda said. Harry, suddenly craving for fresh air, stood up as well. Lydia remained seated and didn't say a word.

"Don't bother about washing up, someone'll cast a few spells on the dishes later tonight," Brenda said as they dumped their plates in and around the large sinks.

As they made their way out of the kitchen, Harry felt something tingle in his neck. He looked around, and saw that Lydia, still seated at the now empty far end of the table, was staring straight at him. Yet when their eyes met, she quickly looked away.

Thomas led them to a side entrance at the back of the building. There was a small square at the entrance, that was surrounded by overgrown gardens. The weeds, bushes and trees were completely bare in the cold December, but the anarchy that reigned in the once neatly trimmed boxes was still clear to see.

There were a few others there as well, lit cigarettes in their hands already when they arrived there.

"Dudley, meet Gerry. Bobby you've met already."

Harry nodded at Bobby and shook hands with the former. It was hard to make out his features in the winter darkness, but he saw a receding hairline and a wispy moustache.

"What's that you're doing there?" Brenda asked, pointing at a cluster of blue flames on the ground at Gerry's feet.

"Trying to keep my feet from freezing off," replied Gerry, who looked much younger than Harry.

"Your bluebell flames don't emit enough heat," she said, and Harry was surprised at her gentle tone.

"Oh. Right," Gerry said.

"Told you," Bobby added in.

"C'mon, finish your cigarette and go inside. You'll get a cold at this rate."

They smoked in silence (Harry refused a cigarette again), and Gerry left them soon after.

"Poor bloke," Brenda said when the door closed after him.

"Is there something wrong with him?"

"Something?" Bobby snorted. "I think you'd be better off asking what's right with him."

"I've known him almost all my life," Brenda said, immediately going for another cigarette when the first one was burnt up. "Grew up in the east of town together, went to the same school…" she shook her head and took a drag, her slim figure shivering in the cold. "He always was the most unlucky person. Got sick every other week, was always in the wrong place at the wrong time at school, so he was always involved in fights that he could never win."

"He's always had noodle arms, which didn't help," Thomas supplied.

"I know how that feels," Harry said.

"We eventually got in with the wrong sort," Brenda continued. "And it was all downhill from there for us, especially Gerry. He lost both parents when he was thirteen, so he had to go live with his uncle. I didn't see him anymore for a few years. I got a letter from him when I was sixteen, and we got back in contact with each other again. When I saw him again after all those years…" she paused and took another drag, looking like she wanted to inhale the whole thing in one go. She then looked appraisingly at Harry, cocking her head, as if she was judging him.  
"He…" she paused. "He tried to cast a memory charm on himself, but it backfired. He was good at magic, excellent even, but I think he got second thoughts while saying it, and the spell was botched. It worked, alright: he doesn't remember anything that happened before in his life. But he still has chronic memory loss because of it."

"That includes forgetting to wash himself, forgetting to eat, forgetting to get dressed…" Thomas summed up, sounding more emotional that he normally did. "It's no use trying to teach him those things, because he'll just forget them anyway. He'll be like this for the rest of his life. If he didn't have us, he'd be dead or used for whatever malicious thing you can come up with by the wrong sort. We've been taking care of him ever since Brenda brought him to us… Five years ago?"

"Six," Brenda corrected him, eyes downcast.

"But he can still speak English, can't he? How does that work?" Harry asked.

"Do I look like a brain surgeon to you?" Thomas asked him, sounding affronted. "I don't know. Some things he seems to remember, like talking, writing…" He spread his long arms. "It's spell damage. Magic never behaves logically."

Brenda looked straight at Harry. Her hair colour was fake, as well as her drawn on eyebrows, and he assumed that she, like him, wore coloured contacts. But the pain reflected in her eyes was real.

"This is what we're here for," she said, without a sliver of doubt in her voice. "We're outcasts, all of us, but we take care of each other, because we think everyone deserves that chance."

"We would all be a complete waste of space without this," Bobby added, and Harry became aware of how the three of them surrounded him, all of them adding to the story. "I'd still be doing Moon Sugar all the time somewhere near the docks, but now I help keep the city safe."

"Even Gerry has found purpose in his life," Thomas said. "You'll find that he's always got time to talk, if you need to. And the best thing is," he said, squeezing the light out of the stump that was left of the cigarette and flicking it in the bushes, "he won't remember what you say to him, so we can all talk to him once in a while without a worry that we say too much."

* * *

And thus began Harry's life as a member of The Buckriders. He found that settling into his new life among the people he had been fighting against all his life was remarkably easy. The human mind has evolved to cope with the most terrible situations imaginable: violence, captivity, famine, torture, and every hellish situation that people conjure up throughout human history. Depression is one of the tools our minds can resort to when it comes to coping with such trauma, and Harry learned that the complete numbing of all emotion helped him overcome the initial shock that came with all these quick and intense changes in his life.

His life went on without any noteworthy events, while the trail Ginny and Craig followed went cold somewhere in the moors of Yorkshire, as all footprints, both natural and magical, had been erased from the surface by an intense autumnal storm.

And then spring dawned. The perpetual mist plaguing the city of Belfast abated a little but was now joined by thick blue overhanging clouds and daily spring rains. The sun did not show yet, and it would not show for a long time. But, like it does every year, spring brought change in the air.

"I forgot my umbrella," Harry grumbled. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his black training jacket and bowed his head to shield his face a little from the never-ending downpour. Spring had come now, as it was nearing the end of March, but the clouds cast a dark shadow over the city. Brenda, walking beside him for their routine patrols in the southern suburbs, took pity on him, and transformed a cigarette into an umbrella for him.

"Very chic," he noted, seeing the black cloth and worn wooden handle. "Thanks."

"Don't forget next time," she replied shortly, her face hidden from him underneath her hoodie. She sighed. "I wanna move somewhere sunny. Mexico, maybe."

"Don't let Damien know you want to leave."

"Don't joke about that," she warned. "He's been on edge lately, and it wouldn't be his first time to make someone disappear."

"I've noticed as well," Harry said. "Left here?"

"Left here," Brenda confirmed. They turned the corner at a roundabout and entered a pretty street. To their left was the richly-forested university campus, to their right rows of traditionally stuccoed houses. "Thomas reckons it's because of the Aurors, y'know."  
"Could be. But they haven't really interfered or anything. They just stick to patrolling here and there, just like us."

"You know how Damien feels about Aurors," Brenda said, turning her head to look at him. "I don't blame him for getting nervous just at the sight of them. If anything, I applaud him for his restraint. I don't know how I'd react if my mum got-"

"We're here," Harry said, not eager to be reminded yet again of the Aurors' dark past. He opened the rickety wooden fence gate, and they entered the front garden of one of the properties. He paused and breathed in deeply, taking in the smell of rainy rose bushes and evergreens.

"C'mon, we haven't got all day, so let's get this over with," Brenda urged, pushing past him towards the front door and ringing the doorbell.

"I like being outside," Harry said defensively. "And it's a nice part of town."

Brenda huffed and turned around to respond, but then the door opened, and a small, old man appeared in the door opening.

"What cannai do for ye?" he asked, his voice smoky and nasal.

"Mr Bunting?" Brenda said, her tone much sweeter than a few seconds ago. "We're Brenda and Dudley, friends of David. We've come for the…"

"Ah, ye've come fer the harp. Excellent, come in!" Mr Bunting said. They followed him inside, and after taking off their shoes and jackets, they were ushered into the living room.

It was dark there, and very warm. There was a lit fireplace, and the light of the flames danced around the rough wooden floor and white stucco walls.

 _Hermione would love this kind of house_ , he thought as his eyes roamed over the many bookshelves surrounding them.

"Do sit down, and I'll get ye something to drink," Mr Bunting said. Harry tried to force down the grief that welled up at that previous thought and sat down on a green couch next to Brenda.

"Everything alright?" she asked.

"Hmm?" Harry looked at her, trying to act surprised.

"Nothing… forget I asked."

Then silence. The fire crackled merrily, and they heard Mr Bunting move around in the adjacent room.

"Do you read?" he asked.

Brenda threw him an odd look, then turned back to the fire. "No, she said. "I do like comic books. Mugg… normal ones." Her eyes fitted to the direction of Mr Bunting. "I like my characters to stay where they are."

"I've never seen the… special editions before." He hesitated, looking at the heavy wooden door through which Mr Bunting had disappeared. "Do they move, like pictures?" he asked in a lower tone.

"Yeah, they do," Brenda replied. "Gerry has a few. You could ask him, he'd be happy to lend you some."

"Does he remember the ones he's read?" Harry asked.

"No, he doesn't."

"Huh." He paused, considering that piece of news. "So it's a new experience every time. I'm jealous of him."

Brenda threw him a dark look.

"Sorry," he said.

She pursed her lips. "I wouldn't call reading The Harry Potter Adventures every single day that enviable, to be honest."

"Harry Potter…"

"Adventures, yes. You haven't heard of those?"

"No…" Harry said, staring into the fire. "No, I haven't."

"I don't know how you managed that, but you're not really missing out. Claudius Cuculiformus is a complete hack of an author."

"Oh, him I've heard of," Harry said.

"Then how have you never heard of The Harry Potter –" her question was interrupted, mercifully, but Mr Bunting entering the room again, with a tray in his hands. Harry and Brenda's conversation died out immediately, and they watched in a slightly awkward silence as the man placed the tray on the coffee table and placed two tea cups in front of the pair.

"Sugar, milk?" he asked.

"Some milk, please," Brenda said. Harry nodded as well.

The man nodded and poured a bit of milk into their cups. Then he placed his own cup on the table as well, and he went into the kitchen again, not before dunking three sugar cubes in his tea. He came back a few moments later, slowly and carefully carrying an Irish harp into the room. The polished wood gleamed in the dim light. Harry saw intricate Celtic knots along the bent neck, and the soundbox was decorated with woodcarvings in the shape of richly spiralling plants.

"'ere she is," Mr Bunting said, delicately placing it on the floor, at a safe distance from the coffee table.

"It's beautiful," Brenda commented softly.

"It really is. If it were anyone else, I wouldn't even consider letting this beauty go, but I've known David for a long while now. He'll know what to do with her, that's for sure," he said, groaning as he sat down in the sofa facing Harry and Brenda. "Say, why couldn't he come himself?"

"He's quite ill, sadly," Brenda said. "Going outside is a rarity for him these days, let alone taking a trip across town."

"Now that's a shame," Mr Bunting said. "But I'm glad he's found two people like ye two to help him."

"Oh, we do what we can," Brenda said.

"So what are ye two then, family? Friends?"

"Friends," Harry said without hesitance. "Brenda has known him for a while now. She lives nearby, see. And I moved here from London not too long ago, and I've sort of met them by chance."

"Strange how that goes, ain't it?" Mr Bunting chuckled. "But what's a young man doing here that he can't do in London?"

"Oh, you know," Harry said. He found it in him to give the man an easy smile. "The city was too big, really. I just felt lost there, so I just looked for a new environment."

"Ah, understandable. And has the city been treatin' ye fairly?"

"Yeah!" he said, masking the string of lies with feigned enthusiasm. "Yeah… it's been good."

"Fantastic. Anyway, the harp." He took a sip of tea and stood up to stand next to the instrument. "So, like I said over the phone earlier, it's got 34 strings. The bottom note is a C, so it has quite a bit of range. The strings are nylon. The sound is a bit less sharp that way, but I find it gives you…" he graced his thumb by the strings, and the living room filled up with the rich sound that the harp made. "… A more full sound. David always liked nylon as well, I remember."

"He did say he liked that," Brenda supplied.

"Excellent. Anything string related, sound related, whatever ye can think of, if there are problems or anything, just give me a call. Alright? I'll skip the instructions on how to take care of the harp, because David already knows about that sort of thing. One thing, though. Does he have a good place to store it? Not too moist, no direct sunlight, not too warm?"

"I think he does have a room for that," Harry said, glancing at Brenda for confirmation.

"Yeah, that won't be a problem," she confirmed.

"Perfect. I might just stop by one day, you know? I reckon' it'll be hard to truly say goodbye to this beauty…"

Brenda chuckled. Harry started to recognise now when her laugh was nervous and tacked on.

"… But, I just can never seem to find the time for anything lately." Harry felt Brenda relax again. "Take it from me, ye two: if yer going to get married, make sure yer in-law family is not too big," the man finished with a wink. He then continued talking about the harp, but Harry's thoughts had already strayed to a large, red-haired family. An image of life at The Burrow came to him in a flash. He tried to push it down again, but the feeling rose up within him as quick as the flash of memory came. And as Mr Bunting continued droning on about the harp, more and more details floated into his conscious mind: the flowery smell at the Burrow… the sun shining down on the orchard where they used to play quidditch together… the yearly de-gnoming of the yard…

The sun-lit reverie was interrupted when Brenda planted her heel on his toe.

"No, we don't have any more questions, Mr Bunting," she said sweetly. "Thank you very much for all the tips. We'll try to remember as much as we can for David."

"He'll appreciate that, I'm sure of it," Mr Bunting replied good-naturedly. "Now, we said it was gonna be 1500 pounds…"

"Yes, hang on," Harry said, grabbing an envelope from the inner pocket of his jacket. He took the pile of pound notes from it and counted it on the coffee table. He couldn't suppress a grimace when he thought about the nearly skint addicts around the city that contributed to that pile of cash.

"That all seems to be in order," Mr Bunting said, taking the money from the table and putting it in his vest pocket. Then he examined Harry's expression. "It's a lot of money, ain't it?"

"Yeah," Harry said, turning his grimace into a smile. "Yeah, it's the kind of amount that you feel in your stomach."

"Don't I know it!" he laughed. "Alright, let put it in the case first, and then ye two can be on yer way again."

A short while later, Harry and Brenda were outside again, him carrying the case containing the harp.

"Do you see anyone?" Brenda asked him.

"No. Is Mr Bunting watching?"

"No," she said after a short pause. "Okay, stand still. _Reducio!_ "

Harry sighed in relief as the case in his hands shrunk to a third of its size. He took one last look around the peaceful front garden of the house, and then they set off.

"You're still not comfortable here," Brenda said when they arrived at the roundabout.

"Sorry?"

"Don't play dumb, Dudley. I'm talking about back inside, when you were counting the cash. You pull that same face every time you spend some of the money that we've earnt. Everyone can see it."

"So you think–" he began loudly, but he paused when they passed by a woman walking her dog.

"So you're fine with all that? Feeding peoples' addiction as a form of income?" he said to her in a low tone. "Selling people potions that they'll probably use to hurt others?"

"Yes, I am, for the exact same reason that I told you when you first joined: we do it, so that other people don't. If we don't control that flow throughout the city, we'll have rivalling gangs up and running again in no time. And if there are rivalling gangs," she said, accentuating it by poking him in the chest, "then there will be Aurors again, skulking all over the city."

"We already have Aurors all over the city."

"Good point, Dudley. You know, you may be as passive as anyone I've ever met, but at least you've got brains."

"Thanks, I guess."

"You're welcome," she replied airily. "Anyway, back to the Aurors: don't you find it strange that they're here, even though the magical community has been really quiet for the past year or so?"

"Not really. I think it's more down to Lord Castlereagh's promise of more safety."

"Yeah, but he was talking about London, and elsewhere in England, where that string of murders took place last year. No, I think there's more going on here. Have you seen Damien in the headquarters lately?"  
Harry scratched his beard, reminding himself once again that he should redo the hair dye soon. "No, I haven't. Is that so unusual?"

"I tell you what," she said. "In all my years here, Damien has never been away for more than two days. He's been gone for four now. And even before that he just seemed… distracted, you know what I'm saying?"

"I don't think he likes being speculated about, you know."

"Me neither," she said. She grabbed his arm and pulled them to a pause as she looked him dead in the eye. "Which is why he's not going to hear about this… Am I right?"

"Don't worry."

"Says you." Her gaze slid down his face. "Quite a bit of grey coming through in your _brown_ beard there, Dudley. Must be from your stress-free life."

"I'm an _old soul_ ," he deadpanned.

"Of course you are. So can I trust you to keep quiet or not?"

"You can trust me," he said.

"Good." She abruptly started walking again. "And if you're curious about what I said about Damien, try and observe him the next time you see him, and see if I'm right. And try to do it without him noticing, of course."

"Damien notices everything, though."

"Not if you're sneaky, like me."

"Sneaky? Are you not the one wearing the loudest high heels I've ever heard?"

"Even with those I'm ten times as silent as you," she said without skipping a beat.

A pause.

"Why are you trying to make me doubt Damien?" Harry then asked curiously. "You said you lived for nothing else but the Buckriders."

"All for the safety of the city," she said, winking at him. "Just tell yourself that your patrol duty extends into the headquarters as well. That's what I do, at least."

* * *

When they got back, they still had an hour to go before dinner would be served. They went upstairs with the harp, and where Harry normally went right to go to his bedroom, they now went left and around the corner, towards the upstairs wing at the back end of the building. Harry hardly ever came here, but it looked more of the same: broad halls lit up by ever-burning torches hanging in their sconces on the beige walls, and doors on both sides leading to bedrooms of various gang members. The ones at the very end of the hallway were bigger, and that's where they knocked on the door.

"Come in," a feeble voice from inside said, and they opened the door, stepping into David's bedroom.

David was the oldest member of the Buckriders at seventy-four, and the best friend of the late founder of the society, Conor Jones.

"I would have been Northern Ireland's most famous poet of the past century if I wasn't conned into this great load of ponce and wonce by that oaf Conor," he told everyone during long evenings he spent drinking his favourite honey liquor. Everyone knew however (the knowledge having been passed down onto the next generation), that David only joined the Buckriders after he failed his university entry. Some even said he joined the underground society a few years later than that, and that he did it to run away from love sickness after a girl, whose name varied from story to story, rejected his marriage proposal.

Either way, David was one of the earliest members, and thus he had seen it all. Not that he would ever be heard talking about it, though, which is why much of the early history of the Buckriders was shrouded in hushed silence.

What _was_ certain, however, and plain to see, was that David refused to give up his hobby of old Irish culture and folklore. Which was the reason that, when Harry and Brenda stepped into his bedroom that rainy afternoon, they entered a room filled to the brim with books, furniture, artwork, decorative things that stood on shelves, and also music instruments: flutes, harps, and uillean pipes.

David himself sat in a chair by the window, overlooking the western suburbs. He had a green blanket over his skinny legs, and a thick, worn book in his lap. He looked up from the pages when they stepped in.

"So you brought me that harp? Excellent!" he said, his eyes drifting towards the case in Harry's hand.

"Where do you want it?" he asked, heaving slightly from having to carry it all the way here.

"On the bed please," David said, standing up. "But be careful!"

Harry slowly placed it on the woollen blanket. Brenda enlarged it again, and they stepped back as the old man opened the case with shaking hands. His eyes seemed to light up as he saw the harp inside.

"Beautiful…" he whispered shakily. "So well maintained too, bless your soul, Bunting."

With strength that betrayed his frail stature, he lifted the instrument from its case and placed it in front of the chair, before sitting down in it. He then breathed in deeply and struck a few chords. They echoed through the room, and Harry felt the notes resonate through his body.

"Wonderful," David said. "The strings seem to be in order as well."

"You'd hope so, with the amount of money we spent on that thing," Brenda quipped.

"This is worth it. Come, sit down," David said, gesturing to the bed, which was the only other place to sit, even though the room was quite large. It reminded Harry a little bit of the Room of Requirement, only with fewer centuries-old, blood-stained murder weapons.

They sat down on the soft, warm blanket without second thought. Refusing David was not an option in this society, especially not when he wanted to tell you a story.

The old man gently pushed the harp away from him so that it stood on its own again, and then turned his chair towards Harry and Brenda. "The big tale of this era that we live in, is that things are changing quickly around us, especially for the Muggles. You've seen them walking around with them phones in their hands, doing all kinds of things on them. Cars look different every year it seems like, the new buildings we build all look nothing like what we used to make before. And then on top of that the weather is getting weirder and weirder every year. I tell you, it never got this bloody hot in the summers in the past. Everything is changing, and that includes the Wizarding World as well. I never thought I'd see the day that the Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, would actually get arrested and indicted for his crimes, for example." He had to pause his tale when a coughing fit overwhelmed him. Harry and Brenda watched on with slight discomfort as he grabbed a handkerchief from his pocket and coughed into it, his wrinkled face contorted in the fit.

"Anyway," he wheezed, folding up the handkerchief again. "With all these things going on, people seem to forget who they are. And it's logical: when everything changes around you, so do you, and so do the people you interact with. And it's right confusing, I can tell you that. So we want something we can rely on. And one thing that will always be there, is our past. I'm not talking about my personal past, Brenda, don't get your hopes up. No, I mean history. All these books I have are proof of the fact that there will always be a new story to be discovered in the history of mankind. That's the only certainty in life, and that's why I've collected so many things over the years, and why I keep writing about them. I can only hope that I can give others that certainty, that place to escape to, that I've found in history."

"Your books do sell well," Brenda said encouragingly. "It's only a shame that you publish them under a false name."

"It is what it is," he said. "If I didn't have this anonymity, then I wouldn't be able to publish. They can't know about the Buckriders. Too much has happened in the past for that…"

Then his watery blue eyes found Harry.

"You're the new one," he said. "Dudley is your name, am I right?"

"Yes, sir."

"And how are you liking it here, in your new life?"

"He can't accept what we do here," Brenda said before Harry had even opened his mouth, and she pressed on while Harry stared at her indignantly. "The drugs, I mean. You should have seen his face when he gave Mr Bunting the money, David."

"Ahh, my boy, I know how you feel. I've been there too, you know, when I first joined Conor's grand plan to finally make a change to this city. As for you, I hope it reassures you that you young folk make an old man proud. The city is virtually unrecognisable from the time when I grew up, trust me when I say that. It's all slowly becoming a distant memory now, and it's up to you now to continue this healing process, and make sure that we can forget about the horrible things that happened here. And trust me, when I see you all come back from every patrol round with nothing or almost nothing to report, I think it's worth it. So cherish the tranquility in this city. _That's_ what we do it for."

Harry chose to keep his lack of conviction to himself. They said goodbye to the old man and exited the room again.

"I've got to see Gerry again," Brenda said. "Ask him if he's washed himself yet today. I'll see you at dinner, Dudley."

Harry, with little else to do that day, chose to go downstairs to the kitchen to see if there was anything he could help with, in order to pass time until dinner.

But there was no one else there, save for Connor, the chef. His silhouette was outlined sharply as he stood on front of the rainy window, slowly stirring a pan. It smelled strongly of garlic. Harry, knowing that company was the last thing that man was looking for while cooking, was about to exit the kitchen again, when he heard two voices in the central hallway. The hairs on his neck rose up even before he recognised who they belonged to, and he froze still, with his hand on the door handle.

The voices drew nearer and nearer. There was nothing else in this part of the building that they could be heading to. One of the voices belonged Damien, he knew, the other was at the edge of his conscious mind, but he couldn't place it. But the feeling of dread was not imagined. He looked back into the kitchen. A newspaper, laying on the grand central table. He paced towards it silently, moved the chair back while making sure the legs didn't make any sound as they slid over the tiled floor, and sat down, burying his head behind the paper. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Connor look at him in curiosity. Then he looked away from Harry and to the door as it opened. Two figures walked in.

"… always the same weather here," Damien said. "A hot cup of tea is always welcome. What about you?"

"Yes, I think I have time for a cuppa," said the low voice of Corban Yaxley.

Harry, feeling the paper start to stick to his clammy hands, breathed in and out to calm the jittering, but his mind reeled at the entrance of the old Death Eater, even more so the apparent connection between him and Damien. Just to be sure that his ears weren't playing tricks on him, he turned his head slightly to examine the man. It was indeed Yaxley, still with his long white hair, still wearing his luxurious black jacket. But then a thought entered his mind that brought everything to a screeching halt.

 _Damien knows who I really am_.

He breathed in and out again, the conversation between the two men on the other side of the kitchen not penetrating through the buzzing in his ears that started to come up. He folded up the newspaper and quickly made his way out of the kitchen again. He closed the door behind him, and then pressed his ear to the slit between the door and the doorpost.

"I've never seen him before," he heard Yaxley say. "Is he new?"

There was a pause in their conversation, and Harry's heart raced faster and faster as he waited for Damien's reply.

"Yes, he is," the man said. "He's called Dudley. Squib. Used to be a copper in London."

The rest of the conversation was lost on Harry as he stood upright again. His head was still buzzing and spinning, and in a daze, he went upstairs to his bedroom, and stayed there the rest of the evening.


	9. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re-uploaded because something went wonky last night and the chapter didn't show up in the recently updated section. Apologies, and enjoy!

The first thing Harry thought the next morning, was that he wasn't going to get out of bed that day. He hadn't slept well. The close encounter with Yaxley kept replaying in his mind, and he couldn't stop wondering what Damien was doing exactly, and whether or not there was some grand plan behind all of this. Then, when he concluded that sleep definitely wasn't going to come easy that night, he flicked on the small lamp on his bedside table and grabbed a pen and paper to write down what he knew, as he usually did as an Auror when he had a particularly confusing case that needed to be solved.

_\- Damien knows who I really am._

_\- Damien has contact with Yaxley, and they seemed friendly and at ease with each other._

_\- Damien chose not to share my real identity with Yaxley._

Then the pen hovered over the paper as he hit a dead end. Only questions remained from here on out. Why didn't Damien tell Yaxley? What did the man want with him? How the two came to meet wasn't a pressing question: they were both criminal figures, and the British underground world, especially the magical one, is not that big. Another thing that was sure, was that he would be well and truly toast if it came to a confrontation between him and the two men. Damien still had his wand.

He rolled onto his other side when the arm his head leaned on started falling asleep, and then he felt a ghostly cold sensation, as the wand holster carrying the Elder Wand dragged across his hip.

He _did_ have a wand.

He pulled up his arm and stared at the wand for a long time. It was the first time in ages that he'd done so. The dark brown stick looked innocent enough, neatly tucked into the black straps rolled around his forearm. But as he lay still, he gently became more aware of all the processes of his body: his heart thumping restlessly in his chest, his respiration, the permanent rushing sound in his ears, along with a faint peep that had snuck into his hearing over the past few years, and blood pumping through his body, from his chest to his cold feet and then back to his chest again. And in those bodily functions, he felt a cold sensation emanating from the Elder Wand. It felt slightly cold, yet when he touched the wand with his fingertips, the wood felt the same temperature as everything else. But the cold sensations travelling from his wand to the rest of his body was not imagined.

Only three people knew that he had this wand, as far as Harry was aware: him, Kingsley, and Yaxley. Kingsley was apparently in Azkaban. Yaxley didn't know where he was, but Harry didn't doubt that the ex-Death Eater had been scouring the land ever since Harry disappeared last autumn. Although the cold emanating from the wand worried him, there was no doubt that he had to keep the wand safely tucked in. Yaxley was close by, much closer than he expected and wanted, and he didn't want the wand to fall into his hands.

The question was: was he prepared to use it?

Merely the sight and touch of the wand brought him back to that fateful night last autumn in the Forbidden Forest. His memories of that time were vague, and it scared him. The only thing he remembered vividly was that moment when he reflexively shot a spell into Hermione's belly. He knew now that it hadn't been fatal for her nor the baby. He should feel relieved about that, but the guilt would not abate.

And why did he still feel so cold all the time?

More questions floated through him as he stared unseeing at the white ceiling of his cold bedroom overlooking the old gaol on the other side. He hadn't seen Ginny for half a year now, but why was today the first day when she had entered his thoughts again? Why had he never thought about the fate of Kingsley, who was arrested and locked away in the terrible wizarding gaol? Why had his two oldest friends, Ron and Hermione, never passed his thoughts? They were parents now, yet he didn't feel anything when he considered that supposedly wondrous thought.

Everything he used to feel, everything he expected to feel, was missing, and replaced by this cold, grey fog in his mind.

His eyes fell shut, and he felt himself drift off to sleep, but right before it happened, he saw that afternoon's scene in the kitchen again. And he was wide awake again, his heart pounding, hands shaking, expecting Yaxley and Damien to burst into his room at that moment.

It went on and on until the light that was cast on the far end of his room, reflecting the many raindrops sliding down the window, slowly became lighter, turning to grey. If only to have a brief respite of the nothingness he felt, he willed himself to sleep for at least a few hours, before he had to get up the next morning for his usual rounds through the city.

* * *

Eventually, and only because he didn't want people to ask too many questions, he willed himself out of bed. He was still afraid that Damien had still decided to reveal Harry's true identity to Yaxley, but staying in bed was not an option in any case.

He stumbled through his morning ritual in a daze, his brain slow and foggy from the lack of sleep. When he sat down at the kitchen table at his usual spot near Thomas, Brenda and Bobby, they all looked at him curiously.

"You look shite," Bobby remarked.

"Thanks," Harry replied, grabbing a baked egg and a kipper from the pan near them.

"You missed dinner last night," Brenda said. "Everything okay?"  
"Yeah, I'm fine."

"If you say so," she shrugged, mercifully dropping it and getting on with her own breakfast.

Thomas, who had been silent in this interaction so far, clapped him on the shoulder.

"I've got good news for you, friend," he said in a chipper tone that was highly unusual for him. "You're scheduled with Lydia today."

Harry groaned. "Why did I get out of bed again?"

"Because you know what happens to people who don't get up in the morning," Brenda supplied, harking back to a week ago. Ian, a thirty-five year old who still behaved like he was twenty years younger, had not been not out of bed in time for a package delivery. His partner for the day, Jack, cordially invited everyone to follow him up to Ian's bedroom, where he summoned a jet of cold water and quite literally sprayed Ian out of bed. Just before everyone left the show again for their own duties, he had warned the man that he would be patrolling in his underwear next time.

"Good point," Harry said, rubbing his eyes.

"Grab some coffee," Thomas said. "I shudder to think of what Lydia would do to you if you went with her half-asleep like that."

"I'll be fine," Harry said. "Just need to get up and running and it's all good until dinner."

They tucked into breakfast again. It helped a little in getting his sleep-fogged brain to get going as he slowly munched on his eggs and sausages and watched the people around him. The jittery mood that he'd had since seeing Yaxley last night finally started to subside.

And then he suddenly felt a hand come down onto his shoulder.

"Time to go, Dudley?" Lydia asked behind him as Harry tried to hide his panicked reaction.

"Yeah, one minute," he replied without turning around. He quickly finished the last of his breakfast and then stood up to join his partner for the day, who was waiting for him by the door.

"If I don't come back for dinner tonight, send out a search party," he said to the others.

"Will do," Bobby said without a sliver of humour in his tone or expression.

"Ready, then?" Lydia asked as he joined up with her.

"Yeah."

"Alright. Our contact has dropped a package at the container yard in the harbour. We'll make our rounds in the centre first and then we'll Apparate to the docks."

"Alright," Harry said shortly, knowing better than to suggest otherwise.

Once outside, the young woman set off at a high tempo, and paid no heed to the other people in the street going the opposite way. Harry could not see her face as he trailed behind her, but he imagined her expression wasn't too pleasant; everyone coming their way hastily stepped aside for her. Harry caught up to walk beside her a while later when the pavement emptied out a little. They still didn't exchange a word. They crossed the bridge over the A12 when Lydia finally said something.

"You weren't at dinner last night," she stated.

Harry waited for her to add something to that, but nothing came.

"Erm, yeah," he then said.

"Why." She didn't turn her head to look at him.

"Well, you see… Stomach problem."

"Ah."

They crossed a large intersection and walked past St. Patrick's church. Harry was admiring the detailed and ornamental front of the building when Lydia spoke up again.

"I don't buy that for a second."

"Why not?"

That question was met with a scathing gaze.

"For a supposed ex-copper, you really don't have good situational awareness," she said.

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked irritably.

"While you were snooping around in the kitchen last night, when Damien brought in that visitor, did you never stop to look around you before you started listening in on their conversation?"

Harry froze and stared at her. She had one eyebrow raised and looked… almost curious, if it was at all possible to read emotion from her cold, grey eyes.

"You were there?" he asked.

"In plain sight. Right behind you. So tell me, what exactly about that encounter made you look like you'd just seen a ghost? And what about it made you so upset that you decided to skip dinner altogether?"

Harry opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, but he was genuinely lost for words. Did she know who Yaxley was? And was she angry about him listening in on their leader?

"What do you want from me?" he eventually asked. They stood at the edge of a small university park, their conversation going on unnoticed by passers-by.

"A bit of action on your end would be good, for a start," she said, her anger returning once more. "Have you done anything useful for us since you joined here, other than walk around a lot?"

"I do just as much as you lot do!" Harry countered, bewildered by the sudden turn of conversation.

She snorted in disdain. "You've been getting the easy tasks until now, because you're new. We'll see today if you're not as useless as I think you are."

"What are we going to do then?" he asked. "I thought we were simply going to do the rounds and then pick up a package."

"Change of plans," she said. "I discovered that one of our contacts, a museum owner by day, shady pub goer at night, has been… insufficient with his information about the comings and goings of magicals. You and I are going to say hi to him and have a nice little chat."

"Alright," he said, as dread settled in his stomach. He didn't know what Lydia meant with _"a nice little chat"_ but it probably didn't bode well for their contact. "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to stand behind me and look angry as I do the talking." A strange excitement could be seen in her expression. "Strangely, most people seem to become a lot better at talking when there's a man in the room as well. If he _really_ doesn't want to talk, then I'm sure you can come up with creative ways to help him see reason. Got that?"

He swallowed, once again asking himself how in the world he had ever ended up in this mess.

"Yeah."

"Good. And there's enough time after that for you to come to your senses and explain what that was all about last night. Unless you can come up with a very good reason, I'm sure Damien will be really interested to hear about a lowly newcomer snooping around and listening in on his private conversations…"

Harry clenched his fists. "What gives you the right to do this?" he hissed, stepping closer to her.

She pulled her wand from her pocket, unbothered by the fact that they were in a Muggle area in broad daylight.

"This wand here, Squibbles," she said easily, knowing her point was already made. "Good luck getting back to HQ if I turn you into a snail right here. Anyway, let's go to our contact first." She glanced at his clenched fists, where his knuckles had turned white. "Don't start swinging those around too quickly. Let him do the talking first. Oh and Dudley?"

"What?"

"Do your part well here, and I might be willing to tell you a bit more about that man Damien was talking to yesterday." Then she turned around set off.

Harry hesitated as he watched her walk away from him. One flick of his wrist, and the Wand of Death would be at his disposal again… Her slim, oh so fragile back was turned… The sound those vertebrae could make if he…

But a wave of revulsion washed over him when that last thought sunk in. He shivered, but was forced to bury the issue for now, as Lydia, having walked ahead quite far already, turned around and watched him impatiently. He set off after her.

"Didn't change your mind, then?" Lydia asked when he caught up with her, her silvery dyed hair waving around in the strong wind. They turned left, and she led them to the front entrance of (he quickly read in passing) the Northern Ireland War Memorial Museum.

They stepped through the thick glass door and into the museum. It was still dimly lit, the early morning light not let reaching through the entire room. Harry saw a big and somewhat cluttered collection of objects, display cases, and mannequins dressed up in old-timey outfits. His eye was drawn to a stained glass window to his right. He saw a wreath with a white dove inside it. Underneath he read the words _"we will remember them"_.

"Are you a bloody tourist or a gang member?" Lydia hissed, leaning close to him. "Pay attention!"

As if on cue, a man appeared through a door at the back end of the exposition.

"Oi, what's this?" he asked. "It's just past nine, we're not open yet for another hour!"

"Really Patrick, that's not a nice way to greet us," Lydia calmly said, stepping forward.

"Lydia!" Patrick said, halting his stride towards them. "What, erm… to what do I owe this pleasure? And who is this you've brought with you?" he asked, nodding at Harry.

"This here is Dudley," Lydia said. "He's not a morning person at all, and has been arrested before for violent conduct, quite a few times even. How many times has it been, Dudley?"

"I lost count," Harry said.

"Oh dear. Now, Patrick, I think we both know why we're here, so let's move this conversation somewhere else, shall we?"

Patrick's nervousness was palpable, even in the dim light.

"Certainly," he said after a moment's hesitance. "Follow me."

He led them to the back of the exhibition and through the door he'd come in from. There was a small office area here, with a few desks against the walls, next to windows overlooking a parking area outside. To their left was a small kitchenette, with a sink and a coffee machine, and in the middle of the room stood an oval table with some chairs around it.

"Sit down, please," Patrick said, standing in the middle of the office and looking like he'd overcome his initial shock. "Can I get you anything to drink?"

"No, this will be a quick visit, I think," Lydia said. "So let's just get right to business." She took out her wand (Patrick recoiled at the sight), and with a quick wave she closed the blinds.

"Now tell me, Patrick. How often have you gone to your regular pub lately?"

"Q-quite often," he said hesitantly, his newfound confidence once again gone. "But didn't you ask me all this just two days ago?"

"I'm the one asking questions here!" Lydia snapped. "Have you been there again since I stopped by last time?"

"Yes."

"How often?"

"Every day."

She took a step closer to him, and he took one step backwards.

"And have you see any unusual guests in there this week? Anyone you don't normally see?"

"Well, erm… They're wizards, you know. All hooded and robed and all, you see, so it was quite hard to, erm…"

"Yes?" Lydia drawled.

"Look, you can't possibly ask me to remember every single person I see, can you?"

"Dudley?" Lydia asked sweetly.

Harry swallowed, reminding himself firstly of Lydia's promise of more information, and secondly that he'd done this not just once when he used to be an Auror.

He stepped forward.

"The lady asked a question," he said in a low voice, cracking his knuckles slowly. Patrick stumbled back even further until he bumped against the kitchenette.

"Listen, I don't want any trouble. Please, just–"

"Then do what you're supposed to do and answer the question," he urged. He stopped at the edge of the man's personal space, and then, very slowly, he took an extra step forward. He could see the bloodshot brown eyes looking up at him fearfully, the greying, balding hair, and the bags under his eyes, as well as his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed nervously.

"Al-alright," Patrick sighed, averting his fearful eyes. "Just… don't hurt me."

Harry nodded, then stepped back again to allow him some space again. Patrick breathed out loudly, then took a chair at the oval table.

"There was one man," he began, leaning his chin on his hand.

"When did you see him?" Lydia asked, leaning over the table across him.

"About a week ago. And a few times since. And… he's been here a few times before as well in the past few months."

Lydia's eyes widened momentarily. "You _lied_ to me, Patrick," she hissed, leaning down further towards him. "Every single person in my life lies as if their life depends on it, and I'm thoroughly sick of it. So you'd better tell me every single small detail you know, or else…"

"I'll tell you everything," he said, looking up at her. "Everything I know… Just don't hurt me, please." He sighed. "I first saw him in January in The Bard's Taint. He really was hooded, I didn't lie about that. But his clothes looked a lot more expensive than what you usually see in that pub, so he stood out to me. I also saw long white hair underneath the robes. He didn't really say anything, just drank a bit, looked around the pub a bit, and then left again."

"So why didn't you tell me this back in January?" Lydia asked tightly.

"Because I didn't think much of it at the time. He didn't bother anyone, and he was gone before I knew it. I even forgot about him, until this week, when I saw him again. That was on, erm…" he scrunched his face. "Saturday, I think."

"And what did he do?"

"Just the same thing. He drank by himself, then left again. Then came Monday, and then I saw your leader… Daniel?"

"Damien," Lydia corrected him.

"Damien, him. He came into the pub, together with that man I was talking about earlier. They sat in a corner together, talking about something. And then, erm…" He closed his eyes in concentration and massaged his temples. "I… don't remember. I-I… No, I only remember that I came home and went to bed. But that can't be!" his breathing quickened and he opened his eyes again. Budding panic could be read in them. "There's something missing," he said to them. "There's a hole between them sitting there, and me getting home! Just a black… empty… hole! What's wrong with me, why can't I remember?!"

Lydia and Harry exchanged a look, and for once she looked worried and confused rather than angry.

"Memory charm," she said softly.

"I've had my memory tampered with?!" Patrick asked in disbelief. "And wait a minute… if Damien was there, how come you two don't know anything about this? What's going on here?"

Lydia looked uncertain at that moment.

"I'm not a Legilimens," she said. "And I don't know any other method of breaking through memory charms. Patrick, is this the first time you've had this gap in your memory?"

"Yeah, this is the first time this has happened to me," he said, still with an affronted tone. "At least, as far as I can remember."

"Then it's got to have something to do with those two," Lydia said. She started pacing around. "Damn it, there must be another way to lift the spell! But how?"

"Try asking pointed questions," Harry supplied. "Give him very specific examples of what might have happened, or maybe some names. Sometimes it triggers something, maybe it'll help drag those thoughts out of his unconscious brain again."

Lydia stopped pacing and turned to face him. "How do you know that?" she asked, her eyes narrowed.

Harry shook his head. Explaining it would mean admitting that he knew that this was a common interrogation technique for Aurors. "Later."

"Yeah, later," she said. Then she pulled the chair next to her back and sat down in it, facing Patrick, whose eyes fitted between her and Harry.

"Alright Patrick, you heard him."

"Do you really think this will help?" he asked.

They both turned to Harry expectantly. He nodded slowly.

"Alright then," Patrick said. "Ask away."

"Right. Let's start with the name Corban Yaxley. Does that name ring a bell?"

"Yaxley, Yaxley… That fugitive Death Eater?" He furrowed his brow. "I mean, I know the name. But no, it doesn't ring a bell in that way."

"Sometimes that just means the recollection isn't strong enough," Harry said. "Try something else."

"If you say so," Lydia said. "Patrick, what if I say the name Harry Potter?"

Harry sucked in his breath, but it went unheard. Patrick let out a loud yelp at the same time, his arms flying up to press his palms to his temples.

"What's happening?" Lydia asked worriedly. "Dudley?"

"It's a normal reaction," Harry said, schooling his features. "It means we've struck gold. The pain will ebb away soon enough."

"I bloody well hope so!" Patrick moaned, his eyes firmly shut. "It was like a needle going into my head… Shite!"

"So do you remember now?"

"A bit," Patrick said in a more even tone. He was still massaging his temples, but his expression looked less strained now. "I remember him – the man with the expensive robes, I mean – he stood up, and then got the attention of everyone. He shot some sparks from his wand, I think. And then he talked about the rumours that Harry Potter was in Belfast, and asked everyone if they'd seen him."

"And?" Lydia pressed. "What did the others say?"

"Erm… nothing, I think. It's all a bit foggy. I mean, I haven't seen him, either. I thought the rumours were just bollocks, you know."

"And what about Damien? What did he do?"

"Nothing that I can remember," Patrick said. "Maybe he just stayed in his seat, I don't know."

"Alright," Lydia said. "Anything else?"

Patrick opened his eyes and stared down at his hands, then looked up at Lydia. "No, that's all I can remember."

"And you're sure you're not withholding anything?"

"Yes!" Patrick called. "I swear, I didn't mean to keep this from you. I just thought that the fact that he was there with Damien meant that you knew about this as well."

"And you've had your memory tempered with as well," Lydia added. Then she stood up and pulled out her wand. "Right, Patrick. I'm sorry, but we can't allow you to have any recollection of this."

"What? No, please! Not again!" Patrick cried. He jumped out of his chair and stumbled backwards, his eyes firmly trained on Lydia's wand.

"Stay still!" Lydia snapped. "I see that hand going to your pocket. Don't even think about grabbing your wand!" She briefly turned to Harry, and then nodded back at Patrick.

Harry, understanding the hint, took a few steps across the office towards him. Patrick tried to get away from him, but he was too late, and Harry grabbed a hold of him by the arm.

"He's still reaching for his wand," Lydia warned.

"Oh no, you're not," Harry growled. He pulled the man towards him and grabbed his other arm as well, ignoring his pathetic cry of protest as he held both his hands behind the man's back.

"I've got him," he said.

"Good," Lydia said, approaching them with her wand aimed at Patricks forehead. Even held firmly in place by Harry, he still tried to shy away from her, leaning his head back as far as he could over Harry's shoulder.

"Please," he breathed. "I promise I won't tell anyone. Just don't use that spell on me again."

"It'll be over in a second, and you won't feel a thing, so stop whining," Lydia said impatiently. _"Obliviate!"_

Patrick went stiff in Harry's arms, and then relaxed.

"Hello, there," he then said, sounding slightly confused. "What's going on here? Why are you holding me like that?"

"Oh, excuse me," Harry said smoothly, releasing the man's arms again.

"Thanks for the chat, Patrick," Lydia said. "We'll see you next week."

"Yeah… Lovely to see you again, Lydia," Patrick said, looking completely clueless as to how he ended up in this situation. Harry and Lydia didn't stay any longer and left the poor man in his office to sort out his jumbled thoughts.

"What the fuck was that all about?" Harry asked after they exited the museum building.

"Not here," she said. To his surprise, she grabbed his hand and pulled him along, further down the street. "Just follow me and act normal."

They rushed forward, and turned a corner, walking in silence as they approached a university building they'd passed earlier. The streets were still not that busy, and it had started to rain while they were inside the museum.

"Where are we going?" Harry asked.

"We need a place to talk, somewhere in private," she replied.

"Does this have anything to do with–"

"Not now!" she snapped, cutting him off. "Just trust me, it's around the corner here."

They turned the corner, walked another fifty feet or so, and then entered a cafe. Harry, expecting a quiet, inconspicuous place, was not prepared for the loud noise that greeted them as the door opened.

"It's a student cafe," she said to him, raising her voice to make herself heard above the noise of innumerable loud conversations going on at the same time. Harry let himself be led to a more private corner of the room. They took off their jackets there and sat down at a small table.

"We're gonna be here a while, so do you want anything to drink?"

"Erm…" he said dumbly, still not fully getting his head around Lydia's behaviour this morning. "Just a black coffee, please."

She nodded and went to the bar in the centre of the spacious room. Harry stared out of the large windows that stretched from the ground to the ceiling. Rain splattered against them, thrown against it by the harsh wind. Meanwhile he absently listened to a conversation between a boy and girl at the table behind him, although he couldn't understand everything they said among the noise of the dozens of other students in the cafe.

"… so the debate around it is pretty heated, I would say," the boy said, laughing. "If you read the footnotes for example of that book by Robert Darnton, he accuses the other historians in the historiographical debate of having fog in their brain!"

They both chuckled as Harry struggled to find the humour in it.

"So how's the other course going? Have you read that book on memory sanctions in ancient Rome yet? It's called _The Art of Forgetting_ , right?"

"No, I haven't!" he replied. "Is it an easy read?"

"No, not really. Just endless anecdotes, you know. Example after example, 300 pages of it."

Lydia then arrived with two cups of coffee in her hands, and she sat down across from him. All traces of anger had disappeared from her, but nervousness seemed to have replaced it.

"Are you going to start explaining what's going on now?" he asked her.

"One moment," she said. "Got to make absolutely sure we're not overheard."

"Not that there's any chance anyway with the noise in here," he commented.

"Can never be too sure." She stuck her hands under the table for a few moments. "Alright, I've cast some privacy charms."

"So what's going on?" Harry asked immediately. "What's with that interrogation just now? And what do you know about Yaxley?"

Lydia didn't answer straight away. She bit her lip and looked away at the rain-covered windows.

"This is harder than I thought it would be," she said. "Right, better to rip the bandage off immediately, then. Let's do away with the charades, shall we, Harry Potter?"

Harry, who had carefully brought the cup to his lips, coughed once, splashing hot coffee around his mouth.

"What… How did you know?" he spluttered.

"It was rather obvious, I thought," she said. "You'd grown your hair and beard, but I've seen your pictures too often not to recognise you."

"And the others? Do they know?"

"The other members? I have no clue. I never talked about your true identity with anyone else, anyway."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. "So you knew all along, then?"

"Oh, yeah. Some things didn't add up, though. Mostly that you said you were a Squib, that threw me off, especially when you did absolutely no magic at all the whole time. Did you lose your magic?"

"Wait a minute," Harry said. "What are you planning? I'm not just going to tell you everything, you know."

Lydia sighed. "What I'm planning rather depends on you."

"Then we're at an impasse. I'm not telling you anything until you can promise me not to have me arrested or throw me to the more bloodthirsty Buckriders."

"Promises are worthless. Magical ones as well, that whole _I swear on my magic_ is bollocks." She traced her finger over the edge of the coffee cup. "What if I tell you a little about myself first? Then after that, you can deem if you're willing to divulge a bit about what happened to you."

"I didn't expect you to be so forthcoming," Harry said, not entirely convinced by her yet. "You've been completely different today from what I've come to expect from you." He added.

"As in, I'm not a complete bitch towards everyone?" she asked, the corners of her mouth quirking upwards.

"Was that an act?"

"Not entirely. I have a lot to be angry about."

"Like what?"

She took a sip of her coffee. "In life, you have people who do well, people who fail, and people whose life starts shit and stays shit for the rest of their life. I belong in the latter category. My mum died at childbirth, and I was raised by my Da. Well, at least until I was five. He was already monitored by child services, you see. He drank a lot. He wasn't a bad person, just… drank a lot. And then one day we went to the grocery store, a big Tesco. This was in Liverpool, by the way."

"I guessed so," Harry said. "Your accent…"

"What of it?" she asked, and briefly the edge in her voice returned.

"Nothing. Carry on."

"Fine. We went there, and then he forgot me. He asked me to pick up some cereal on the first floor. Coco Pops, I remember that well. And then when I returned, he and the shopping cart were gone. I remember completely panicking, searching all over the store for him with the box of Coco Pops in my hand, until someone thought how strange it was that a little girl was all alone in a store, crying her eyes out." Her voice rose as she continued. "And then, in my panic, I did accidental magic for the first time. I Apparated all over the shop while looking for my Da, cause it was quicker than running around. I didn't know what it was at the time, cause both my parents were Muggleborns. I just wanted a way to go through the store as quickly as possible. It caused a massive panic of course, and then the Aurors came to take me away to the Ministry in London. They asked me there who I was, where I lived, whether I knew I was a witch, whether my parents were magical or not… Eventually they managed to contact my Da and take him to the Ministry." Harry saw the cafe lights reflected in her grey eyes as they grew wet. It felt incredibly awkward to see a woman he hardly knew express such an intimate emotion, and so he did what he thought was best: keep his mouth shut.

"He took me home and spoilt me like crazy," she continued. "I got to eat whatever I wanted that day and watch all my favourite cartoons. But the Aurors still had to report what happened to the police, as you would know, I guess." Harry nodded. "So child services knew as well, both what had happened that day as well as his drinking habits… and they took me away from him the next day. A day after Da promised to never leave me behind again." She sniffed and dabbed her eyes with a napkin. "I'm sorry. I've never really talked about this…"

"I know the feeling," Harry said reassuringly while under the table he was fidgeting his hands in nervousness. "Do you want to carry on?"

She nodded emphatically and wiped away the few tears that had spilled over.

"I was placed in a magical foster home here in Belfast. The parents were nice enough, but their son and I didn't get along at all. No surprise that he ended up being a snatcher later when Voldemort came back."

"And your father?"

"We continued to see each other regularly. Every other weekend. But the whole thing messed him up bad. His drinking got worse, which meant that he didn't do his job well anymore, so he got fired, got money problems, spent all money he didn't have on alcohol… He was killed by people he owed money to when I was twelve. When I heard the news…" She breathed in and out shakily. "I mean, I wasn't doing too good up to that point, but I still went to a small magical school here, and I didn't do anything weird outside it. But when they murdered my Da… I had no one left, you know what I mean? And when you have no one, that's when the bad sort come and find you… Pretend they're your friend, lure you in. And once they've got you, there's no way you're ever getting out. That's how I became a part of the Buckriders."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "You want out," he said.

"Not until recently," she corrected him. "And had I told you this story a few months ago, I would've been a lot more positive about the society. But then… this is what's what brings us to this day. I follow the news, you know. Not just of what happens here, but also in all of Britain, and beyond. I know about the murder spree last summer, and how it slowly dragged you and Minister Shacklebolt down. First Ollivander–"

"A House Elf," Harry interjected.

"Oh, yeah, sorry. The new Ministry divulged that to the public a while back, did you know? But I forgot about it. Anyway, then Ollivander, and then Lovegood, the editor of the Quibbler. I read that paper. Do you know what happened to it after you disappeared?"

"I've been in limbo ever since," Harry said, shaking his head.

"His daughter, Luna, she took up the mantle. It's become a lot more scientific since then, but the first edition… I carry it on me, one second." She stuck her arm in the opening of her black jacket. Her arm went suspiciously deep into it, leading Harry to believe there was an extension charm on the inner pocket. That was confirmed when she got out a rolled-up copy of the Quibbler that was far too large to fit in a normal pocket.

"Read the foreword, fifth page," she said, handing it to him.

Harry took it, leafed to that page, and began reading.

_What is an ideal? As you may have heard, the editor of The Quibbler, my father, Xenophilius Lovegood, was murdered by the last fugitive Death Eater. The ideals of Voldemort and his sympathisers are all too familiar to all of us, and, sadly, still alive as ever. Those ideals have taken my father. But they do not manifest themselves just in a rogue murderer. The new Minister, Lord Castlereagh, who is to us a well-known kingpin in the Rothfang conspiracy, has repeatedly shown his sympathy towards pure-blood supremacy. This shows in his first act as a Minister, which was arresting Minister Shacklebolt and making Harry Potter a wanted man._

_What is an ideal? It is not something that can be murdered, and attempting to do so is hateful and counterproductive. That is why I have decided to take over the role of chief editor of the Quibbler, and I urge all of our contributors, both regulars as well as the sporadics, to continue doing their incredible work. Because an ideal cannot be silenced with violence. And even when hope seems as elusive as a Harry Potter who is wanted by the Ministry, it will still be there. This world moves in cycles. My father has been returned to the Earth he loved so much, and from his remains will grow a new, beautiful dirigible plum tree, just like it had been with his father and his grandfather before that. And those blossoming trees shall give us its fruit that, when ingested, helps us to accept the extraordinary. It was all that he ever wanted to achieve through his publications, and that ideal will not be forgotten through an act of killing._

_The sun still shines behind the clouds, and I am full of hope as I wait for it to break through again. In the meantime, the Quibbler will continue to be published according to its usual schedule._

It then continued with more practical information about the magazine, where Luna thanked her close correspondent in Paraguay, Aimé Bonpland, for his help in these trying times. Harry closed the paper and took a moment before he looked up to meet Lydia's eyes again.

"How does that make you feel?" she asked him, energy shining in her gaze.

That was a good question.

"I… I miss her," he eventually said.

"I envy you, that you're friends with such an incredible person."

"Was," Harry corrected her. "I _was_ her friend."

"No. You're wrong, dead wrong, if you think your situation is unsalvageable, and that is what brings us here." She took the paper in his hand and held it up. "Do you know what this did to me?" she asked. She patted her chest. "I felt what she wrote. I felt hope. I felt once again how I felt when I lost _my_ dad. Every single agonising detail of it, but instead of sinking as low as I did when it happened to me, she chose to react like this: with defiance, with hope." She breathed in, and a sneer appeared on her face. "And who did this act? Who took this incredible woman's father away from her?"

It was as if a light went on in Harry's head. "Corban Yaxley."

"And our leader is chums with him," she spat, enraged energy dripping from her voice. "I'm done here, Harry. I've been in this nest for over half my life, and that's far too long. You and I, Harry Potter, are going to escape."

"How?" Harry asked, her determination only marginally breaking through his desensitised outer shell.

"We'll have to figure something out. We _will_ figure something out. But for now, we need to continue as if nothing happened. No one can know about this, absolutely no one. I'll make sure we're grouped together more often for our tasks, and we'll use those times to plan our escape."

Harry stayed silent, and she raised an eyebrow while she regarded him.

"You're not convinced," she concluded.

"To be honest, I'm having trouble taking all this in," he said slowly. "You can see that this all comes from nowhere for me."

"Of course." She emptied her cup. "How about we do our tasks first? It'll give you time to consider it."

"That sounds fair," he said. "Where do we need to go?"

"The tip of the docks. We've got a few bottles of Acromantula venom hidden in one of the containers and we need it back at HQ. But before we do that, we need to do our patrol rounds. If we come back too quickly, people will start to suspect something."

"Good thinking," Harry said, realizing that, one way or another, he was now involved in Lydia's scheming. It didn't matter what he did from here on – tell her on, keep her secrets, or plan their escape together – his new life in Belfast had changed fundamentally this morning.

They stood up, Lydia paid the bartender on their way out and walked out, into the dark, rainy morning.

They headed further into the centre. The streets were quite empty this late in the morning, and the only people on the pavement other than them were in a hurry to get out of the weather as quick as possible. Harry didn't mind, though, and neither seemed Lydia. Their jackets kept most of the rain out.

Then Lydia walked closer to him and nudged him softly.

"Hmm?" he asked, lifting his head.

"Aurors," she said, nodding slightly to their left.

A Muggle wouldn't be able to spot them, and even witches and wizards would have trouble knowing the man and woman wearing bright yellow ponchos were actually the Ministry's law enforcement. But after a few weeks of Auror presence in the city, the Buckriders had begun to recognise the individual Aurors, and how they dressed incognito (jeans and a grey woollen winter coat, and a yellow poncho when it rained too much). Harry didn't know which Aurors were hidden behind those disguises, but he was fairly sure that they weren't _his_ Aurors. These were probably new ones, Robards' men.

Harry and Lydia didn't stop to examine them, as they didn't want to attract any attention from the Aurors, who seemed to be doing exactly what they were doing: keeping an eye on things in the city.

"It's the same couple I've seen in the western suburbs last week," Lydia said. "They seem to be patrolling there the most often. What do you reckon that means?"

Harry, thinking back to the cat's bright green eyes he'd seen back when he delivered a package in that western part of town, only shrugged.

"I hope you don't mind me asking," Lydia then said as they crossed over Writer's Square. "But how did you end up here?"

Harry considered that question as they walked with their heads bowed down, and contemplated whether he trusted her enough to share his answer with her.

"What do you know so far?" he asked her instead.

"Well, I know you were hunting for Yaxley, which didn't go smoothly."

Harry snorted.

"And then came that one day where you disappeared. Well, you had your title of Head Auror taken away first. And after that you were without a trace, until you reappeared here," she summed up. "I do keep up with what happens in the world."

"I gathered," Harry commented. "Are we going to chat with the magical optician, by the way?"

"You're avoiding the subject," she said. "But yes, we are."

"It's not easy," he said defensively.

"Neither was what I told you earlier in the cafe."

He had no reply to that. A part of him wanted to tell her that this wasn't an appropriate occasion to spill his struggles of the past half year, but he forced that thought down.

"What happened in the Forbidden Forest…" he began. "It's a long story."

"It can wait, if you're more comfortable with that." She sounded like she didn't mean that.

"No, I _want_ to tell you this," he said. Because another part of him yearned, longed, to finally share his feelings with another human being again after these long months. "Just… Not everything."

"I didn't share everything either," she said. "Back in the cafe. So don't worry about it."

"Thanks."

They didn't look at each other during their conversation as they strolled over the wet pavement with their hoodies up and heads bowed down. But that wasn't needed, he felt. And so he started talking about the chaotic, frenzied episode in the Forbidden Forest. He felt somehow detached from his words as he told her how he and his godson were being shadowed by Yaxley, and how he had attacked Hermione before realizing it was her. He didn't pause to hear or see what her reaction was, afraid as he was that his grief might catch up with him if he stopped now. So he continued telling her how he wandered aimlessly through the forest, then south as he tried to flee from the harsh Highland winter.

"Why did you go to Belfast?" Lydia asked him then.

"I don't know," he replied. It was mostly the truth, but he didn't want to admit, to Lydia nor himself, that he was afraid that it wasn't _his_ decision to begin with. But she didn't know about the dark artefact currently pressed up against his left wrist, so he quickly continued on and told her how he first met Damien.

"Now that you know he has eyes everywhere," she said. "Does it surprise you that he was there right on time to save you from that addict?"

That was when they arrived at the optician. They didn't stay long (Harry was not a fan of the dark, musky shop), and after confirming with the old, crooked witch that it was all quiet, save for the Aurors keeping an eye on things, they went on again.

He then told her about those days spent at Damien's house, and the revelation that the man had known his true identity from the start, which led him to his initiation into the Buckriders the next day.

"You've been deceived and cheated into joining this society," she said. "And so have I. Conor Jones was still alive back then. He took me under his wing when he saw me wander the streets all alone every day. He stoked the fire of the hatred I already felt for the Ministry after they and child services took my Da away from me. He was the only one who actually respected me, looked out for me." They had covered the entire centre, and now walked back north next to the river. "His nickname was Lucifer, and I discovered how appropriate that was fairly quickly. The city is not a safe place for young girls, you know. Especially not if they're all alone. Conor was just in time to save me from a pimp who tried to lure me in. What he did to that boy…" she closed her eyes for a moment. "Awful coincidence that he was just at the right place at the right time, isn't it? He then told me he had a place for me in his society, where I could be safe, where I could look out for other people in my situation as well. You can see how easy it was to accept his offer, can't you? And then, before I knew it, I was fifteen and initiated as a member of the Buckriders. It's been just over ten years now…"

They walked in silence.

"When did you start to regret it?"

"The doubts were always there. But I started to think about my exit when I discovered that Damien was friends with Yaxley," she said. She met his eyes, and her expression under the hoodie was one of utter disgust. "You know what grief he has brought to so many people. I wanted to believe that the Buckriders were better than that. That we only kept the city safe and gave people with no hope a new purpose." She shook her head, a few raindrops sliding off the jacket. "I couldn't believe that any more when I saw what kind of people we attract. And then my eyes were opened to the way we earn the income to sustain ourselves. We exploit addiction. That smack addict who tried to kill you back when you first arrived here? We gave him the drugs he needs. We may not have made him who he is, but we damn well nudged him further along that path. And the more I thought about all, this, the harder it became to justify my part in it."

They passed the Beacon of Hope Damien had shown him when he first arrived here.

"So you started planning to escape," he said.

"Not immediately," she admitted. "Planning and fantasising are not the same thing. But then when you stepped into our building one day, resurfacing here of all places after a long period of being missing, I knew my chance had come."

"So the anger towards me and everyone else…"

"All an act. But I'm not the only one doing that, you know. You'd be surprised how little you know the others."

"I figured that. I just wonder whether their masks are because they are ashamed, or because they're afraid to be recognised."

"Who knows," Lydia shrugged. "Are you ready to get the delivery, then?"

"Yeah, it's all good here. Aurors seemed at ease as well."

"Grab my arm, then."

They appeared in between two lots in the northern part of the large Belfast harbours.

" _Homenum Revelio!"_ Lydia called, showing that there was no one around who could have seen them Apparate.

"Alright, to the lorries," she said.

They appeared from the small space between two grey square buildings and crossed a large courtyard. The building to their left was part storage, part fight club. The building to their right housed a company that sold electric hardware. Both were empty at this time of day, which which was why this particular spot was a popular Apparation point for the Buckriders.

They walked down the road, pretending that they were just on a stroll during their lunch break. There was no real need for that, though, as there was no one around. Without any obstruction, they entered the enormous yard of lorries. On the other side was the river mouth, and at that point an enormous ferry, from the very same line Harry had used to get here, sailed by at a sluggish tempo.

They found the delivery where it was supposed to be (the twenty-seventh lorry on the third row that was otherwise filled with bananas). Harry hesitated before he slipped the bottles into the small bag that Lydia held open for him, wondering with a sick feeling what purpose this stuff would be used for.

Lydia seemed to know what he was thinking. "Just put it in, Harry," she said softly. "If we start actively meddling in deliveries and such, Damien will know immediately. We'll just have to stick to our roles for a bit longer."

"You're right," Harry muttered. "He's said plenty of times what he'll do to me and my… the people I care for, if I do something. But I hate it."

"Me too." And through the layers of make-up, dyed hair and concealed eye colour, he saw in her expression that she meant it.

Before they apparated back to the headquarters, Harry took one last look at the boat that had almost disappeared from sight now. Something stirred inside him that he hadn't felt in a long time, blooming from the murky depths of emotionless emptiness that he had sunk into for so long now. And he thought back many years ago, to his fifth year at Hogwarts. It was something that Ginny had said to him back then: _"The thing about growing up with Fred and George is that you sort of start to think that anything's possible if you've got enough nerve."_

Despite the cold, rainy weather, he felt warmer than he'd felt in ages, yet at the same time he felt a sharp ache in his chest at the memory of her. He swallowed the lump in his throat and let the torrent of emotion sink down before he responded to Lydia.

"We'll have to use those ferries, I suppose," he said. "Apparating across the sea automatically alerts the Ministry."

Lydia froze and stared at him. "So you're in?" she asked.

"I'm probably gonna regret this, but yeah, I'm in."

And for the first time since he'd met her, he saw her smile.


	10. Chapter 9

Things changed after that day. Harry and Lydia spent more time together during their patrols and other tasks. Others were curious about this, but she passed it off with her usual dispassionate air, saying that she did it to try and make "Dudley" more useful.

"Still got yer gonads, then?" Bobby regularly asked him a few weeks later, when they returned late in the afternoon for dinner.

"I checked," Lydia said before Harry could speak. "There wasn't anything to cut off, sadly."

And so she diverted all tricky questions.

Damien continued to be suspiciously absent, but he was still always there in Harry's thoughts. Now that he was conspiring against the society, he became more alert of any interaction with the others, more jumpy, more careful for any sign that they might be onto him and Lydia.

"It's no use being extra careful when it's exactly that attitude which is going to give it away," she said one day during their patrol. "People are noticing that you've become more jumpy lately. So stop it."

Harry discovered that, while her anger at him and everyone else was an act, she could still be easily irritated by him. Not only regarding their plans to escape, but it also went beyond that.

"How aren't you starving all the time?" she asked during breakfast not too long after they truly got to know each other.

"I'm just not hungry," Harry muttered, noticing that others were looking at her and his plate curiously.

"Well, if I ever need someone to role-play a skeleton for me in a Halloween play, I'll be sure to give you a call."

"Thanks," he said. He wanted to say something back, but he knew that she was right, as mean-spirited as her loud remarks were. He hadn't gained weight since he arrived here, and there was a perpetual worry inside him ever since his discovery about Yaxley and Damien, that stole away his appetite.

Nevertheless, he and Lydia began planning in earnest as the dreary summer slowly started to make way for autumn, and as his one-year anniversary on the run was rapidly approaching.

The fact that Damien still had Harry's wand made planning much harder. Lydia didn't know about the Wand of Death, but Harry wasn't sure he would be able to use the tainted thing in the heat of the moment anyway.

So they had to find a way to get Harry's wand back and then reach the ferry before anyone knew about it.

Harry did let Lydia in on his Invisibility Cloak, but while it could be very useful in many situations, he couldn't just sneak into Damien's house under the cloak to retrieve his wand.

"You'll have to find out where it is first," Lydia said during one of their many conversations in one of the many cafes and pubs Belfast had to offer. "And trust me, a gang leader keeps his treasures safe."

"So it's not in the basement of the headquarters?" Harry asked.

"No. Everything in there is written down in the inventory, and I've already checked those logs. Damien does have an office in headquarters, but there's nothing of value in there. So I'm fairly sure your wand is somewhere in his house."

"And asking him is not an option?"

"Not unless you want to alert him to the fact that we're planning something. No, Damien will want to keep you under his thumb, I think. Giving you back your wand is the last thing he wants to do."

"I just wish I knew what his plan for me is, you know?" Harry lamented. "That's something I've never understood, and he never gave me a straight answer either."

"What did he tell you instead, then?"

"He said he didn't know, but that he couldn't resist me."

"Oh my," she said, the corners of her lips tugging upwards. "Well, Harry. Are you into men?"

Harry sucked in his breath and chocked on a bit of spit in the process.

When he was done coughing it up, Lydia still looked at him with a cocked eyebrow and an interested smile.

"Well?" she asked again.

"Blimey, Lydia," he uttered. "Anyway, erm… I mean, you know about Ginny Weasley and me, right?"

"Yeah, so?" she said. "You can be bi, you know."

Harry took a moment to formulate his answer. "I'm not into Damien," he then said. "And no one else can know about this conversation, you hear me?"

"I know my way with secrets," she said, still smiling indulgently. "But I didn't ask you this just to tease you, but–"

"Could have fooled me," he interjected.

"– What I _was_ going to say, is that I have an idea how you can snoop around his house without him suspecting anything."

"Oh?"

"You seduce him."

Harry's mouth fell open.

"It won't work with that look, I can tell you that for free," she said. She put her hand under his chin and helpfully closed his mouth again.

"You're barmy," Harry then breathed. "Absolutely barmy. How would that even work?"

"Well," she began. She averted her gaze and bit her lower lip. "I haven't thought of it yet…"

"Not even a bit?" he teased.

"As if I'd fantasise about a pile of sticks like you. No, I figured it would give you an excuse to visit his house and see the rooms you don't usually see."

"And how, then, would I get away from him to turn his house over without him noticing?" he challenged. His cheeks felt very hot all of a sudden, and his heart was beating faster than usual.

"Well…" she began again. "You could ask him. Maybe he'll be in a generous mood? And if not, you could just… poke around? Men usually like to sleep after sex, right?"

"Erm… sometimes?" he said hesitantly. "Wait, are you suggesting I actually _have sex_ with him? I thought you meant I just give him a kiss at most! I don't want to have sex with anyone for something like that!"

"Look, I'm just giving suggestions here," she protested. "Do you want your wand back, or not?"

"Yeah, of course I do! But you're not expecting me to immediately drop my pants and bend over for it, do you? There must be another way!"

She let out a frustrated sigh. "You're a big pussy, do you know that?"

"Fine! You do it, then!" he bit out.

"As if that would work," she said, rolling her eyes. "I don't know how much you know about Damien by now, but he's as gay as Albus Dumbledore in purple robes. So even if I'd turn up in just a thong, it wouldn't work."

"I can't believe we're having this conversation," Harry said, staring out the window at the busy shopping street.

"We're just trying to come up with ways of how to get your wand back," Lydia said. "And it's too important to pass off our options just because we're not comfortable with them. Really, it's too late for that anyway, considering our day-to-day job consists of dealing drugs. We're past any moral high ground."

"We had no choice," he said.

" _You_ maybe didn't," she said. "I did. I willingly joined the Buckriders, even after I already knew what they were all about. Plus, have you done anything at all the past year to put an end to the drug trade? Approached the police? Sabotage things?"

"No," Harry mumbled. "But I hardly take care of myself anyway. Anything outside what I do every day is just not happening."

Lydia, for once, didn't reply with a snappy remark.

"You're a mess," she stated instead.

"Don't I know it," he said, averting her sympathetic gaze. "I'm useless."

"Not if you go out and bang Damien," Lydia said, reaching across the table to give his shoulder a shove. "Chin up, Harry. I know it doesn't seem like it here in Ireland, but the sun will shine after the rain."

"Do you really believe that?" he asked despondently.

She cocked her head. "Why else would I be sitting here, planning our great escape?" she asked. "Yeah, I do. In fact, you simply _have_ to believe that it will become better. Otherwise it's all just hopeless, and you'll be stuck forever."

There was a pause in their conversation, and they drank their pints instead.

"What do you see yourself doing after we escape?" he asked.

"Honestly? I have no idea," she said. "It's been so long for me that I can't even image what it would be like not to be a Buckrider. But we'll see, won't we?"

"Yeah."

She looked at him while she brought her teacup to her mouth again. "And you?"

Harry leaned back and stared out the window, to the monotone grey skies.

"I miss Ginny," he said after some deliberation.

"Your girlfriend?"

"I hope I can still call her that."

"C'mon, that's too melodramatic. It was a mistake that you fired a curse at your friend, but I'm sure they can forgive you for that, right?"

Harry furrowed his brow, still refusing to look at her.

"There's more," he said. "It's not just that particular thing… It's hard to explain."

"And you don't know if you want to tell me or not," she filled in.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be – I understand."

"What it comes down to," he then said, "is that I betrayed her trust and lied to her about something for months."

"Shagged a bird behind her back?"

Harry shot her a dirty look.

"A bloke, then?" she asked, unconcerned with his reaction.

"No," he said. "I don't do that."

"So what you did was not as bad as cheating on her? That's good news."

"Well, no, it is. Or maybe not." He sighed and rubbed the back of his head in frustration. His hair would have become even messier because of that, had it been short. Now he just tangled his long brown hair. "It's different, but no less bad."

"I see."

"I'm terrified that I've lost her," he then confessed. "The longer I'm away from her, the more often I've got days where she doesn't cross my mind, and it scares me. I don't feel anything at all, anyway. And then when she's in my thoughts again, you know, how she looks, feels… I feel nothing. Well, nothing, except for that fear that it means that I've lost her, because of what I've done." _And the fear of that thing strapped to my left arm at all times._

"What do you mean, you feel nothing?" she asked.

"I'm so cold, Lydia…" he replied immediately, briefly closing his eyes, but still refusing to look her way. "I've been able to keep it under cover, when I'm with others, or out here, you know, not in private…" he gestured around the cafe room that was moderately full with people enjoying a quick lunch. "But it wants to come out, and it scares me when it does threaten to."

"Like now," she said, her face tense as she listened to his outpouring.

"It's…" he nervously toyed with a strand of beard hair as he tried to stay one step ahead of the dam that threatened to burst inside him. "D'you know what it is? Everything I feel, it's muddled, and strange. I can't explain it, but I still feel like I want to. Most the time I just feel nothing, you know?" He hesitated, taking a short, quick breath. "But then other times like these it just all comes through, and it's so much more intense than anything I've ever felt, and I don't understand it. I want…" he bit his lip as his throat constricted and his eyes began to prickle, as tears formed in them. He breathed in and out deeply, and felt his heartrate sink back to a less frantic tempo.

"I tell you what," Lydia said after he had calmed down again. "I don't know what happened between you two, I don't know what she's like, and I don't know what you two are like together." She leaned in closer, energy shining in her expression. "But I _do_ know that one year ago, I had completely given up all hope of change. I never expected Harry Potter of all people to suddenly turn up right here, erm… fall into my lap, so to say… to provide the perfect opportunity to finally escape."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean, Harry, is that you never know what's gonna happen, that nothing is certain. Do you think the stuff old David tells us about ancient Irish culture is all true? Of course it's not, he just makes it all up as he goes along! They're not true accounts by any means, they're just his way of making sense of things. And exactly the same goes for the future. Nothing is certain, and yet we still spend all our lives filling in what we _think_ or _hope_ is going to happen, and we let those fantasies lead us. It's complete bollocks, nothing true about it…" she tapped her head. "But it's in here, and that makes it true. And once you realize that, that's when those fears that you have start losing their power over you. Cause they're no more legitimate than any other thought."

"Do you really believe that?" he asked.

"Most of the time," she said, grinning. "And now more than ever. So drink your pint, Harry. We've still got our patrol rounds to do."

"What about those plans we discussed earlier?" he asked.

"Think about it," she said. "I know it's pretty extreme, but it sounds like you know exactly what you're fighting for here. Don't forget that, okay?"

"Okay."

They paid the bill, and he was surprised as they stepped out into the cold, windy rains of Belfast, when Lydia tugged on his arm and pulled him closer to her. For a while, they walked like that; side by side, arm wrapped around the other. They separated a few streets further, but the feeling lingered. Something important had passed between them, and while Harry never mention that conversation again to her, he nonetheless never forgot about it the rest of his life. And from time to time, when he was alone with his thoughts, the words she'd said to him would still echo in his mind, like a balm on his soul.

* * *

The planning went on during their regular patrols and cafe visits. The problem, Lydia said, was not the escape itself, but what came after.

"Once you're out, you've got a target on your back for the rest of your life," she said. "That's the way gangs work, otherwise people will just quit by droves."

"I know, I've dealt with gangs before as an Auror."

"I don't doubt that, but it's different once you're in it yourself. And I doubt the stuff you've dealt with was anywhere near as organised as the Buckriders."

"True. Although we did deal with a cult-like gang of Americans one time. One of our own Aurors was involved with them as well. It was quite convoluted, actually."

"You'll have to tell me more about that later. But to sum up about our options, we can either kill literally every Buckrider and everyone associated with us, or leave the country and get a new identity somewhere on the other side of the world."

They shared a look.

"I vote neither," Harry then said.

"Then you'll die before you can enjoy your freedom. Although…" she looked away in thought. "Only Damien and I know your real identity. We could kill him…"

"Absolutely not," Harry said.

"Why not?" she challenged. "You're a gang member and a drug trafficker, Harry, you can't exactly hide behind morals here."

"I didn't fall into all this voluntarily, if you remember," he replied tersely.

"Fine then, I'll do it for you. Cause I did."

"We're not killing him," he said, bringing his hand down on the table. "That's final. First of all, we need my wand. Second, he's no use to the Aurors when he's dead."

"Alright, I'll give you that one on the wand. But if you interrogate him, he'll just rat you out, and then what?"

"Then I'll say he threatened to kill me and my loved ones if I didn't work with him," Harry said. "Cause he did that, repeatedly."

"Will that make a difference?"

"With the new Minister? Absolutely no clue," he confessed. "In normal circumstances it really does. I've seen a few people go free because they claimed duress as defence." He sighed. "But I don't know. In all honesty, I'm a wreck anyway, and that pushed me towards this gang just as much."

"You're getting better, though," she said, offering him a small smile. "But what about me, then? Everyone here knows who I am and what I've done over the years."

"Yeah, so killing Damien won't help a thing."

Her shoulders drooped. "All right, we'll let him live, then."

Auror presence persisted all the time, but Harry didn't see Yaxley anymore, and neither did Patrick, the museum director. It all went by in monotone, and all too soon it was time for them to work on setting up the specific details of their escape.

He'd spent that day patrolling on his own, while Lydia visited a few of the Buckriders' contacts to buy two brooms and a Portkey.

* * *

That night they went to their bedrooms as usual but stayed awake until everyone else was asleep.

Harry finally closed the comic book he'd leant from Gerry, got out from under the covers, and hid himself under his Invisibility Cloak.

When he got downstairs, instead of going to the kitchen like usual, he went left instead, to the storage area and the unused basement.

He waited there, under his cloak, and soon after he saw a silhouette appear at the end of the corridor, outlined by the light from the main hall.

" _Lumos,"_ he heard, and Lydia's wand lit up, illuminating her face in white-blue light as she approached him.

"I'm here," he whispered when she got close to him, and he removed his cloak.

She eyes widened slightly when he appeared, but the tension etched in her face did not abate.

"Nifty," she whispered, running her hands over the silky material of the Invisibility Cloak. "Alright, follow me."

They passed the heavy door that lead to the storage, and reached a heavy, slightly rusted, iron door at the end of the corridor.

Lydia cast a _Muffliato_ spell on the area before noisily sliding open the heavy rusted lock. A wave of stale, ice-cold air greeted them as the door swung open. He heard a few squeaks from rats echo in the next corridor.

They stepped through the doorway, and it was evident that this wasn't maintained like the rest of the building. The stucco on the walls crumbled away, revealing the brickwork behind it. Water dripped down from the ceiling and onto the grey, uneven floor, and stained copper cables stuck out of the walls at shin height.

"This building used to be a courthouse, you know?" she asked him, not whispering anymore.

"Yeah, Bobby told me so."

"I don't know if he told you this as well, but our building and the gaol next door are linked. They did that so that suspects awaiting sentence could easily be transported between their cell and the courtrooms."

"Bobby said so as well."

"We've all heard it from David," she replied.

"Of course."

They soon reached the end. The tunnel was blocked up here by a shoddily put together brick wall.

"Well," she said. "I would love to blast this to bits, but that would make too much noise. We'll have to take it apart by hand, I'm afraid."

"At least it won't be hard to do so," he quipped. "Was this made when the building became the Buckriders HQ?"

"I think so," she said. "Typical, isn't it? Do you think it's for the tourists on the other side or for us?"

They set to work.

"How did it go today?" Harry asked during the repetitive process of prying loose a brick and putting it aside on the floor.

"Not too bad," she replied. "I can pick up the brooms in a week, and I've already got the Portkey."

The Portkey was her idea. They were assuming that it was impossible to sneak out completely undetected, and so they wanted to give their pursuers the illusion that they were heading south. Then, at the edge of the city, they would grab the Portkey, and be delivered to the docks, near the ferry to Liverpool.

"Once we know on what day we're doing this, I'll set it to a quarter past five in the morning of that day. That should give us enough time to board the ferry."

The wall turned out to be as easy to break down as it looked. Soon the path further down the tunnel was clear, until they came across a barred, locked door. Behind it they could see another iron door that was identical to the one behind them.

"This is where our preparation ends. They're both unlocked, but I'm not going to open them," Lydia informed him.

"Because of the noise it would make?" Harry asked.

"Right on. I'm going to assume the worst here, so I'd say we're able to sneak off undetected until these doors. When we open these up, just run like the devil's after us, okay?"

Harry nodded. "Got it."

"The guided tours of the gaol go until the other side of this door. After that it's not too long until it goes upstairs, and then you're in the gaol itself."

"So we're hiding one of the brooms in the building site in the courtyard of the prison, which we're able to access at night due to this tunnel…" Harry said, once again running through what they'd agreed on before.

"I'm keeping the other broom in my pocket, and I'll wait for you in the kitchen if I'm able to…"

"Otherwise you'll just act the part and participate in the hunt for me, and then Apparate to near the ferry when it's time…"

"And then we should be safely on our way to Liverpool," Lydia finished. "Assuming they're smart enough not to Apparate onto the ferry and alert the entire Auror office."

"And then once we're there, we'll Apparate to London and try to sneak into Grimmauld Place under the Cloak."

They shared a look, and Harry saw his budding excitement reflected in her eyes.

"This is really happening, isn't it?" she said half-whispered. "It feels so…"

"Scary?"

"Yes!" she said, grinning widely. "Brilliant, isn't it?"

"Yeah…" Harry said, unable to stop himself from smiling back at her. "Makes you feel alive, doesn't it?"

"Now all that's left for you is to ravage Damien," she said, winking at him. "But that's something we'll plan tomorrow, alright? I'm knackered."

They walked back through the tunnel after wiping most of the dust and grime off their pyjamas.

When they arrived upstairs, they spent little time saying goodnight, choosing to act as casually as they could. But when he turned around and went into the wing where his bedroom was located, he saw Bobby coming back from the bathroom, with a lit wand in his hand.

Harry froze, as did Bobby. He tried to keep his breathing under saw his eyes flick from him to Lydia's retreating form. Then a grin appeared on his face, and he approached him quickly and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"I don't think I've seen her smile even once before you got here," he whispered to Harry. "I don't know how you've done it, but I'm happy for you two."

"Oh… Erm, thanks," Harry whispered back. "But–"

"Also… fuckin' on the ball, friend!" He lightly punched Harry's arm. "You're making a lot of lads here absolutely green with jealousy."

"Thanks, but–"

"Night, friend," he said before Harry could finish his sentence. "Sweet dreams, and good luck staying awake tomorrow after a short night like this!" He threw one last wink at Harry and then tip-toed back into his bedroom.

Harry remained there for a moment as he tried to make sense of that encounter. Then he yawned until his jaws hurt, and quickly went to bed.

* * *

Harry received a lot of pats on the back the next day as rumours about him and Lydia spread through the society, as well as some death stares from (according to Thomas) the more jealous types. The excitement died out soon, though, when Lydia had had enough, and hexed someone who was talking about their supposed relationship, turning his head into that of a pig.

The attempts to reverse the transformation were quite the spectacle, as one after the other tried their hardest, but failed time and time again. People started to take bets on who would be able to finally do it, and all the while the kitchen was filled with the poor bloke's panicked squeals as he was forced to lie on the table while everyone experimented on him. It became clear as time went on that no one seemed to be able to reverse the change.

Eventually it was collectively decided to bring Damien in, because his magical prowess far outweighed that of the others. He managed to reverse the hex without too much trouble, and everyone present in the kitchen cheered loudly.

Harry looked away from the scene and to Lydia, who stood quietly off to the side, calmly observing the scene as she leaned against the counter. When their eyes met, she raised her eyebrows and then averted her gaze to the door opening. Harry, understanding the hint, followed Damien out of the room when he left, citing important business.

"Damien?" he asked as he saw the man on the other side of the main hall. Harry had to jog at quite a tempo to catch up with him.

"Ah, Dudley," Damien said with an easy smile. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes, it's fine. Look, I wanted to ask you something…" Feigning nervousness was not hard, but he tried to lay it on extra thick, bringing his hand up to scratch his neck as he looked away from the man.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Damien asked, coming to a stop. "You look a bit distressed. If it's about you and Lydia, which everyone keeps telling me about, you don't have to–"

"No, no, it's not about that," Harry said, interrupting the man. "It's, erm… Ugh." He swallowed, then looked back into Damien's brown eyes. "Could we talk in private, please?"

"Of course, Dudley, but not now," Damien said, though he looked intrigued. "Important business, you know. I don't have the time."

"What sort of business?" Harry asked, staying at his side when he started walking to the exit again.

"Ah, a bit of this, and a bit of that… Can you wait until tomorrow? I've got a bit of time then after dinner."

"Alright, that can work," Harry said. "At your house?"

That made Damien stop again as he reached out to grab the doorknob of the front doors.

"It's kind of personal," Harry continued. "Please?"

Damien cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. "Alright, then," he said, the corners of his lips creeping up. "I'll come over to side-along Apparate you at around eight, then."

"Eight," Harry repeated. "Alright, thanks. And… It's good to see you again, Damien."

Damien's smile grew wider. "You too, Dudley. See you tomorrow."

Harry opened the door for him and watched him as he paced quickly to the edge of the property. Once outside it, he disappeared into a crowd of tourists that just passed by.

Harry didn't go back to the kitchen, instead he rushed upstairs to the bathroom. Once inside, he quickly unzipped his hoodie, as if it was about to strangle him, and threw it on the tiled bathroom floor. Sweat crawling down his neck and armpits, he leaned over the sink to look in the mirror as he struggled to slow his nervous breathing.

He was splashing water on his face when he saw the door open in the reflection of the mirror, and Lydia entered.

"Tomorrow at eight," he said to her after she locked the door and cast a few privacy charms on it.

"Excellent," she said, leaning against the radiator.

"I don't like it," he repeated yet again, as he'd done so often when they had talked about this.

"Me neither. Just make sure you can find your wand quickly, alright? I dread to think what Damien would do if he discovered what you're truly there for."

"You're not helping," Harry said. His hands gripping the sink still shook a bit.

"He did seem in a hurry, didn't he?" Lydia commented, ignoring his last statement. "Damien, I mean."

"Yeah, I noticed that too."

"Wanna find out what he's up to?" she asked.

"Why?" He turned around to face her. She had that gleam of excitement in her expression again.

"Well, I've always been curious about what he does," she said, taking her wand out of her pocket and twirling it in her fingers. "He never talks about it, after all. Besides, we'll be gone tomorrow, anyway. And no one will suspect anything if we sneak out of HQ together. They'll just think we're off to bang somewhere."

"And why would we leave the building for that?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Well, it's kinda hot, isn't it? Doing it in public?"

"Or in nature…" Harry commented as his mind travelled back to his sixth year at Hogwarts, to the many spring afternoons he spent together with Ginny.

"Ah, you're a man of taste!" Lydia sniggered. "Also, if I can sweeten the deal…" She paused to rummage in her jean pockets, and then withdrew what looked like a rolled up, meaty cord, which Harry recognised as an Extendable Ear.

"They're fifteen years old inventions, and still very useful," she said, grinning widely.

"You're a genius," he simply said, mirroring her grin.

"Ready to go then?"

"Oh, definitely."

They Apparated into Damien's neighbourhood, a few streets away from his house, and immediately ducked under the Invisibility Cloak together.

"We're lucky that you're so skinny," Lydia whispered, her mouth close to his ear. "Otherwise we'd never fit under here."

"You could have worn something other than high heels," Harry countered. "That would've helped as well."

"Oh, shut up. You're just annoyed that I'm taller than you with them."

They started walking in the direction of Damien's house. Occasionally an expensive-looking car drove past them, but other than that the streets were empty, as it was around dinnertime.

They turned off the avenue that lead further to Stormont Estate, and onto the street where Damien lived.

"You're sure that we won't set off any alarms under this cloak?" she asked one more time.

"Very sure," Harry whispered back. "Here we are. Now let's hope he's even at home in the first place."

They stopped at the edge of Damien's property, and then, in unison, they gently stepped over the boundary, past the opened fence gate.

Nothing happened, and they breathed a sigh of relief. They moved past the car that was parked there, past the front door, and stopped at the window that looked into the living room.

His fears of Damien not being here were unfounded. They saw him immediately, entering the room from the kitchen, with two cups of tea in his hands. Which meant that there was another person. And when he and Lydia moved a little bit more to the right, that other person became visible to them as well.

Sitting there, on the sofa, wearing clothes similar to Damien's, was Minister for Magic Lord Castlereagh.

Lydia's breath halted, as did his. Hands fumbling, she quickly unrolled the Extendable Ear and laid the tip on the windowsill. There was no Imperturbable Charm on it, and the conversation filtered through to their end of the Ear. They listened with rapt attention.

"… have to apologise for coming in a bit late, I got held up at the Buckriders." Damien said as he sat down and stirred his tea.

"Anything serious?" Lord Castlereagh asked, seeming completely at ease, suggesting that he came here more often.

"No, not at all. Someone's head got turned into a pig's head, and they wanted me to change it back. And when I was leaving, Harry wanted to talk to me about something. It seemed important. I'm meeting him tomorrow evening."

"Interesting," the Lord said, stroking his well-groomed beard, which had grown even longer since Harry last saw him almost a year ago. "And do you still have him under control? He's not doing anything funny?"

"No, not at all," Damien said. "He resisted quite a lot at the start, of course, but people tell me that lately he's stopped complaining and second-guessing the things he has to do for us."

"Excellent. I have to admit, I was quite wary about your plan to keep him here, but it has worked out perfectly."

"I can't believe our luck," Damien said, laughing. "Why he turned up in Belfast of all places, and exactly around the time when I was snooping around the docks, I will never know, but I thank the heavens above for it."

They paused their conversation, and Harry and Lydia shared a shocked look.

"So how much longer can I keep him here?" Damien then asked.

"Difficult to tell," Lord Castlereagh replied. "I must admit, it has worked out well, with Potter out of the picture. Shacklebolt was hard enough to do away with, so you can imagine what kind of shockwaves it would generate if I had the Boy Who Lived arrested. So I would say it's good that he's here under a different identity."

"Bloody Dudley Dursley," Damien chuckled. "Don't know how he thought that name was a good idea. So that means I can keep him here for longer?"

"Yes, for a bit. But the investigation into the Auror practices under his command has stalled, and people want answers. We've uncovered undocumented uses of the Imperius Curse, the sacking of older employees on illegitimate grounds, excessive, sometimes even illegal interrogation techniques…" the Lord frowned. "It's a very potent case, and it has to be solved at some point."

"And how did you find out about those things, then?" Damien asked, grinning as he raised one eyebrow.

"I am the Minister," Lord Castlereagh replied with a simple shrug. "A lot of doors – and filing cabinets – have opened up for me with that title. Something that is hard to imagine for someone like _you_ , little brother."

"Yes, well, we both know the reason for that," Damien mumbled. Harry, his heart pounding in his chest, glanced at Lydia. She mirrored his disbelief and stared at him with an incredulous expression as she mouthed the word "brother" at him, the question in it almost audible.

"You've done well for yourself, despite the… circumstances."

"And yet I still feel trapped here," Damien said, rubbing his hands through his hair. "Yes, brother, I know there's no other way, but that's entirely the point that I'm trying to make… This is the only life that I'm going to get, and I'm happy, and successful in what I do… But there's nothing else that I can do, and I hate that."

"I understand. And that's why we must never allow what we went through to happen again," Lord Castlereagh said, placing his teacup back on the glass talk.

"I don't wish my fate upon anyone."

"And you're doing your part in preventing that," the Lord pressed. "Stand up."

They both rose, and Lord Castlereagh approached Damien, laying his hands comfortingly on his shoulders. Now that they stood close together, face to face, Harry could see the similarities he hadn't noticed before. They had the same hair colour, the same beard (although Damien's was a lot shorter), and the same eyes. Yet Damien was a bit shorter and less broad than Lord Castlereagh. But there was still no doubt in Harry's reeling mind, that these two men were brothers.

"You've made Belfast a safe place for Magicals," Lord Castlereagh said, inclining his head in emphasis.

"Yes, but –"

"You've done your part in getting me elected as Minister," he continued, interrupting Damien. There was something in that statement that made Harry's heart flutter. He was close, so close to the very core of everything that had happened to him. But what was the last piece of the puzzle?

_I should have brought a recorder!_ he thought angrily. The conversation playing out in front of their very eyes was enough to turn all of Wizarding Britain on its head.

"Yes, but –"

"I'm very proud of you," he concluded, holding Damien by the shoulders, looking at him almost as a father might. "And I'm glad we've stayed in contact, even after father disowned you."

"I feel worthless," Damien said, bowing his head.

"You're not. Not to me." And the Lord pulled his brother into a firm hug, placing one hand on the back of his head.

They remained in that position for a while. When they separated again, Damien kept his head bowed, avoiding his brother's eyes.

Lord Castlereagh coughed and made to move to the corridor to pull on his coat, citing a busy schedule.

"I'll be back soon," he told Damien. "I'm curious as to what Potter might want to tell you."

"Me too," Damien said. "I'll send you an owl, but if it's urgent, I'll Floo you."

"Excellent…" Conversation drifted away as the two men moved into the corridor. Harry and Lydia were left in stunned silence. They stayed there, kneeling on the edge of the flowerbeds, waiting for them to come out.

That happened a few moments later. The men said goodbye, and Lord Castlereagh walked through the front yard towards the road. As he passed by Harry and Lydia's hiding spot, his eyes fitted to where they were hidden.

For one terrible moment, his eyes met Harry's.

Harry's breath hitched in his throat, but the moment was over in a flash, leaving Harry's head spinning. The Minister walked through the fence gate, down the road, and was briefly out of view when a van drove past. When it had passed, the Minister had disappeared without a trace.

Harry and Lydia stood up from their crouched position, and walked away from Damien's house as well. Neither said anything, but Harry knew that the woman beside him was as tense as he felt. Only when they were a few streets away did she dare to speak, but in whispered tones.

"I need a drink," she said.

"The Duke of York?" he whispered back.

"I'll Apparate us to that alleyway nearby."

A few minutes later found the two sitting at a table in a crowded pub, the usual privacy charms cast over their table. They drank their pints in shocked, terse silence.

"Brothers," Harry then said. His glass was almost empty by now. "They're brothers."

"And they look so alike as well," Lydia said, staring ahead blankly. "Why didn't anyone notice before?"

"Cause it's so out there that nobody would expect this." He took another hefty sip. "He – Damien – he told me, back when I arrived here in the winter, about the Aurors in this city, and what they did to his mother."

"That he's a bastard child," Lydia added. "And an unwanted one." She put her glass back down on the table and looked at him. "That's beginning to explain why this is kept silent. How much do you know of Lord Castlereagh's family and ancestry?"

"It's an old family, isn't it? I don't know much more, to be honest. That part of the Ministry had always been Kingsley's affair. I wanted nothing to do with it."

"You're lucky, cause I did do some research. Well… David did, for the most part. Anyway, you're right that he's from an old family. They used to be politically prominent in the British Empire until a few centuries ago, and they occasionally had a few witches and wizards here and there in their lineage. Actually, they used to have an estate over in Londonderry, East of here." She absently pointed to her left. Harry presumed that was East. "And I think there are more properties in Ireland, but they are under a Fidelius Charm. It's old money… prestigious money."

"… So imagine the reaction if it came out that one of them was assaulted by an Auror," Harry filled in.

"I guess that's not something that's meant for the public ear," Lydia said. "The Ministry couldn't allow their Auror Office to be put in such bad daylight, not while they were fighting a losing fight with Voldemort."

"So then… the Minister for Magic has a half-brother who is also a gang leader," he summed up.

"One of the most prominent ones in Britain…" she added.

"Who has regular contact with Yaxley…"

"And who makes his money off the drugs and illegal potions trade…"

"My head is spinning."

"You've not even drunk a whole pint yet," Lydia said, but the joke fell flat in the context of their conversation. "Yeah, mine's too. You know–"

"Hang on…" Harry interrupted her. "Considering this, right… Assuming that Damien and Lord Castlereagh have always had this sort of contact with each other…"

"It did seem like it."

"That does put Lord Castlereagh's campaign in a whole different light, doesn't it?"

"I'm not following you here," Lydia said.

"Think about it," Harry said, putting an elbow on the table and bringing his knuckle to his lips as he thought. This was it: the last piece of the puzzle. He pressed on excitedly. "Something that Lord Castlereagh said just now made me think this: _"you've done your part in getting me elected"_.The start of his campaign for Ministership began virtually at the same time as Yaxley's murder spree. And his main selling point was that Kingsley had failed to guarantee the safety of witches and wizards in Britain. Awful coincidence, isn't it, that those two things developed hand-in-hand?"

Lydia's mouth fell open in shock. "Are… are you saying the Minister _ordered_ those murders?"

"I don't know," Harry admitted, biting his knuckle. "Yaxley attracted a lot of attention from the Aurors due to those murders, so I don't think he'd just commit them that lightly. He's been a fugitive from justice ever since the War ended fourteen years ago, after all. He wouldn't cast himself out in the open like that without a good reason."

"Maybe Castlereagh promised him amnesty."

"Kingsley and I already did," Harry said, his mouth contorting into a grimace as he recalled that episode. "Well, it was a ruse to try and lure him out, but then he escaped again…"

"But it is a possibility, isn't it?" Lydia pressed.

Harry frowned and considered her question. "I don't think so, to be honest," he finally said. "There's something about Yaxley that makes me think it's something different."

"What do you mean?"

Harry stopped rubbing his left forearm and looked up at her. "Oh, erm… intuition. Used to drive Hermione nuts back when we were at Hogwarts."

Lydia did narrow her eyes for just a moment, and he knew that she didn't outright buy that excuse.

"Whatever it is, it does raise the question: what about tomorrow?" she asked.

Harry closed his eyes for a moment. "Shit," he said. "Forgot about that."

"We have to tell someone about this," she said. "I mean this is huge news, isn't it?"

"It is. What if I bring this up to Damien tomorrow?"

"No," Lydia said. "No, absolutely not. Good luck getting your wand back if you do that."

"I could threaten him…"

"Without a wand?"

"You could come with me."

"Do you honestly think I could measure up against Damien? You saw what happened earlier when I gave Robert a pig's head. Damien came in and reversed it in a matter of seconds. He's strong, Harry, don't forget that. Stronger than me. He didn't become our leader just for nothing." She took a swig but didn't break eye contact.

"I wasn't saying we just barge in and challenge him to a duel," Harry countered. "You could borrow my cloak and sneak up behind him."

"No," she repeated. "He might not have told you, Harry, but Damien is no stranger to attempts on his life. At even the slightest hint of danger, he'll Portkey in a few members of the Buckriders to defend him. He has his ways for that, trust me."

"Oh… No, I didn't know that."

"Well, you should have guessed so. C'mon, he's a notorious gang leader. Of course he's going to be prepared for anything!"

"Okay, okay," Harry said. He sighed. "So we don't bring it up to Damien tomorrow."

"Thank you," Lydia replied. "I say the most important thing now is getting your wand back. After that, I think we should still go ahead with our escape."

"Oh yeah, I agree with that. If anything, this gives us all the more reason to! We have to get this information out to the right people."

"Yeah, which leads me to the next question: where the bloody hell do we go after this?"

"London," Harry said firmly. "I don't know if Ginny and the others will ever forgive me for what I've done, but I trust them with my life. And from then on we can drum up more people and get them involved in this. Aurors, friends, family… I don't know how Ginny would react if I suddenly appeared again, don't know if I even _want_ to think of that, but I knew for sure that she would give me a fair hearing. And I know Ron, Hermione and the others would as well…"

He looked up when his train of thought halted, and saw that Lydia was smiling at him in a strangely serene manner.

"What?" he asked, confused at her sudden change of mood.

"Oh, nothing," she said. She sniffed, and to his surprise she wiped her eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied firmly. She straightened her back. "Your plan sounds fantastic."

"So it's settled, then?" he asked, knowing better than to inquire any further into her sudden burst of emotion.

"Yes." And with that, she emptied the rest of the glass. "Let's go back to HQ. They'll probably think we've had a phenomenal session together, by the way."

"It would give us a good excuse for how drained I feel right now," he commented. They stood up from the table and maneuvered through the tables and crowds towards the exit.

"Don't you want to boast about your stamina, though?" she asked.

"I have nothing to prove," he said, avoiding her teasing gaze as she grinned at him over her shoulder.

"Are you sure? I could pretend to be a quivering wreck, you know." They stepped outside and set off due west. He didn't feel like Apparating back immediately, and he didn't think Lydia did, either.

"Then I'd owe you," he said. "And I'm not going to risk that."

"You already do, you know," she said, laying a hand on his shoulder and squeezing it. "And by the way, I'll activate the Portkey tomorrow morning. You're welcome."

"Well, thank you," he replied. They were now at the cathedral they always passed on their way back. He stopped and turned to face her. "And trust me, I really do owe you. I would never have come this close to leaving this place if it weren't for you."

"Says you," she said, her radiant smile illuminated by the ornamental lampposts in front of the cathedral. "And you know, the way you talked about what we're going to do after we get out of here… I wish I could help you to stop worrying about that. They're your family. Trust me, Harry: you're going to be alright."

"And so are you," he said, and at that moment he was utterly convinced of that matter. He grabbed her by the shoulders. "We'll go together. You can stay at my house, and you'll be safe there, at least until we find a more long-term solution for you. We'll think of something."

Lydia stared at him with wide eyes, and Harry thought he saw the faintest glimmer of hope in them.

"I..." she began, swallowing and averting her gaze. Her brows furrowed and she grimaced, tears appearing in her eyes. She looked up once more and opened her mouth to speak. But instead of words a strange sobbing sound came from her. Then she fell forward, and he caught her in his arms.

"But I'm not a good person," she whimpered in his ear. She clung to the back of his jacket with both hands. "I've done bad things here. You don't want me in your house."

"Don't talk about yourself like that," he said softly as she shook in his arms. "And I hope you understand that I can never thank you enough for how much you've helped me here. You've saved me."

"I belong in Azkaban," she sniffed.

For a moment, his mind wandered to the grey monolithic building perched atop a stormy island in the North Sea. Then he remembered Sirius. Not the Sirius from his parents' pictures, but Sirius right after he had escaped from Azkaban. His hands tightened. "You don't," he said. "And I won't let them take you."

She lifted her head from his shoulder, where her tears had made a wet patch, and stared into his eyes.

"Promise me that," she demanded. "Please."

Her tears had smeared her mascara and had made small rivulets in the foundation on her cheeks, showing glimpses of the blushing skin underneath.

He took all that in, and then closed his eyes. "I promise," he said, and he placed a kiss on her forehead.

They stayed there a bit longer. The street was deserted, and no one saw them as they stood there in each other's embrace, bathing in the light of the spotlights that also illuminated the decorated front of the cathedral.

"I probably look like a mess," she then said, and with that, the heavy mood was lifted.

"So I still turned you into a quivering wreck," he quipped. That set Lydia off, and her giggling was far more girlish than he would have expected from her.

"Do you often make girls cry?" she asked as they continued their walk back to HQ again.

"Oh, all the time," he stated emphatically. "And for all the wrong reasons too."

The comments aimed at them when they got back were just as bad as they had expected, but it was easy to pay no heed to them when they were convinced that they'd never see any of these people ever again after tomorrow. They hugged one last time at the top of the stairs and then went their separate ways. None of the shocking revelations of that day entered Harry's mind as he got ready for bed, and he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, for once not dreading what would come tomorrow.


	11. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: this chapter contains detailed descriptions of domestic abuse.

The next day went by in a floating daze. People came and went, commenting on his absent state, telling him that Lydia really had done a number on him yesterday. His patrol round with Thomas passed with hardly any conversation ("don't worry about any comments from me," he'd said at the start. "I don't really give a shit about what you get up to.") and therefore proved to be a welcome break from the interactions back at the headquarters.

Before he knew it, dinnertime had come. He hardly ate a thing, and neither did Lydia, a coincidence that a few others picked up on as well. Brenda, in all her caring, offered to be a listening ear for them, something which Harry politely declined.

And then it was around eight. Harry got up, his stomach churning, his hands shaking and sweat making his skin clammy. One foot before the other, he moved towards the main hall. He exchanged one last look with Lydia, but one glance of her emphatic, understanding gaze was almost enough to snap the last few threads holding him together, preventing his anxiety from getting the better of him and making him burst out in tears.

 _Just a bit longer_ , he told himself. They had only one night to go, and then this would all be over.

And then he closed the kitchen door behind him. He turned around towards the front doors, and saw that Damien was already waiting for him there. Harry tensed the muscles in his throat and breathed in shakily, the corners of his mouth pulling apart into a grimace. Another breath, and this time he imagined that he let out all the tension as he let the air out again. From the tips of his toes to his crown, he pushed it all out. He felt his shoulders relax. And then he moved further forward to meet Damien.

"Good to see you again," he said when he got close. He returned Damien's smile, but inside he was reeling at how detached his voice sounded from his body.

"You too, Dudley," Damien replied, winking at him. "Shall we, then?"

"Yeah, let's."

They walked out, the doors closing behind them on their own. For once, the sun was shining, but summer had already drawn to a close. The bright rays barely made it over the top of the hills to the west of the city, and he felt no warmth from them, nothing to soften the feeling of the icy wind that blew through the street.

Damien looked behind them, and Harry followed his gaze. They saw no one there. Then Damien grabbed Harry's arm and Apparated them to a park near his house. Harry tried to shrug off Damien's grasp, but the man didn't let go. He swallowed nervously as they set off. Harry's gaze fitted from their joined arms to Damien's face, which contorted into a smile that was somewhere between affectionate and menacing. The mirth in his eyes was evident.

"Bit chilly, isn't it?" he asked when Harry started shivering.

"Yeah. Summertime's definitely over," he replied, averting his gaze. Inside, though, he was happy that the weather gave him an excuse for his shaking limbs.

"And what a glorious summer we had," Damien said, shaking his head. "Bloody rain never ended! At least the plants liked it; I hope they did, at least." The awkward attempt at small talk had the opposite of its intended effect, and they fell silent.

They arrived at Damien's house, and Harry finally pulled his arm free of the man's grasp.

"You're quite eager, aren't you?" Damien asked, unconcerned. "I'll admit, you've made me very curious yesterday."

He approached the front door and tapped the lock twice with his wand. It clicked open, and Damien gestured for Harry to go in first. Harry kept his head bowed down as he walked past the man and entered the house. The door closed shut behind them, and he heard a faint squelching sound that followed after it had closed.

 _No way out that way_ , he thought. His hands were starting to get clammy.

"Make yourself comfortable," Damien said as he took off his black coat and rolled the shawl off his neck. Harry didn't know how aware he was of the irony of that statement. "I'll make some tea for us, and then you can tell me what you wanted to talk about, yeah?" He smiled that same predatory smile, and then went into the kitchen.

Harry took off his jacket as well. His thoughts strayed to the study, and, more particularly, the door to the backyard in that room. He could simply go there, hope that the door wasn't charmed shut, like the front door was, and then simply run…

He tightened his jaw and used the same breathing technique he'd used earlier to calm himself down, feeling more in control of himself as his heart slowed. He couldn't run away now, he told himself. He was here to get his wand. That was the most important thing now. He finally hung up his jacket next to Damien's and went into the living room, sitting down on the sofa. The very same sofa that Lord Castlereagh had sat on just twenty-four hours ago.

He soon discovered that sitting down was worse than walking around, as there was nothing anymore that allowed him to distract himself from what he was about to do. He resorted to scratching the soft stitching of the black couch, and that was when Damien re-entered the room.

"Still got room for a cookie?" he asked. Two cups of tea floated ahead of him, and with his left hand he held up two big chocolate chip cookies.

Although Harry's throat closed in a vice at the thought of something solid entering it, he still accepted it with a thanks. He nibbled on the thick edge, allowing the sugary taste to invade his mouth. He wanted to spit it out again, but he had to hide his nervousness from Damien. And so he swallowed the sickly sweetness, barely managing not to gag. He quickly grabbed the cup of tea and took a small sip to wash the taste away, burning his tongue in the process.

"Hot, isn't it?" Damien said when Harry cringed at the scalding liquid entering his mouth. "I charmed the cups to keep them boiling hot, sorry."

"'s okay," Harry mumbled, closing his eyes as tears sprang in them.

"So what was it you wanted to talk about?" Damien then asked, settling more comfortably in his seat, looking like he wasn't going to move for a considerable time.

Harry looked up and opened his eyes again while rubbing his tingling tongue on his palate. In one hand he was holding his cup, and in the other a partially nibbled cookie.

"Oh, erm…" he placed the two back on the table, and found himself completely tongue-tied. He'd focused so much on what exactly he would do to seduce the man, that he'd never really considered how he would broach the subject in the first place.

"Does it have something to do with the Buckriders?" Damien pressed.

"No, not necessarily," Harry replied, again rubbing his nails on the fabric of the sofa.

"I did hear something about you and Lydia…" Damien continued, cocking his head slightly.

"More than a bit, I assume," Harry grumbled. "For members of a secret society, they don't really know when to keep their mouths shut."

Damien threw his head back and laughed, a deep, rumbling laugh that echoed in the quiet of the hardly decorated room. "Oh, well said Harry!" he cried. "Well said indeed. Some of them really are simple, aren't they?"

"Well… I mean, I wasn't gonna go as far as to say…" Harry mumbled.

"Oh, don't worry about that," Damien reassured him as he shifted in his seat to lean back a bit more. "I trust you enough to tell you this: I'm really not impressed with a lot of them. They're not like you and I, you know?"

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"

Damien stared at him as he played with a few strands of his beard. "Is it a surprise to you, to hear me talk about my own society like that? Come on, Harry, you should understand by now that I know better than to skirt around the truth. And I definitely know riff-raff when I see it."

Harry repeated the word _"_ _riff-raff"_ in his mind. That was not the kind of language you'd expect from gang leaders.

"No, they're not like us," Damien continued, jarring Harry from his deviating thoughts.

"Us?" Harry repeated.

Damien nodded. "Us. You and I, Harry, we know hardship. Yes, I know about the way you grew up. Just like every other witch and wizard in this country does."

"Brilliant," Harry interjected, sighing when he was reminded that everyone and their granny seemed to know all about his childhood.

"I know what it's like," Damien continued, a muscle in his jaw twitching once. "Do you remember what I told you about what happened to my mother?"

"That Auror…" Harry said, confirming that he did. "Do you know his name?"

"I suspected something, you know," Damien continued, completely ignoring Harry's question. "I knew there was something going on long before she told me. It's the little things: the way she and my father looked at me… the conversations they had when they thought I wasn't around… And when my mother finally admitted it, on the last dying moments of her life – so that she didn't have to live with the consequences of telling me that I was a bastard child of rape – that suspicion turned into an epiphany." Harry stared at Damien, unable to look away from the gleam in his eyes. "At that moment I knew my father had never loved me, and neither had my mother. They didn't see me, Harry, they only saw that scumbag Auror! No matter how much me and my older brother looked alike, I was nothing to them but the seed of the evil that had torn the family apart!"

A hint of nausea rose in Harry's throat, along with a distinct taste of chocolate. "That's awful," he said, unsure where Damien was taking this.

"Yeah, I suppose you know all about awful, don't you?" Damien said, keeping eye contact. The skin on Harry's back crawled as he took in the intensity burning in Damien's brown eyes. "Most people will never realise this, and definitely not that lot back at the headquarters, but we are all alone on this world. Oh, of course, you can get married, start a family, have friends you can rely on, but in the end all you have is yourself. There's always that gap between you and everyone else, isn't there?" He gritted his teeth and slapped his fist in his hand. "You may love, but you can never become one with the other. You have to make your own decisions, make your own identity, live your own life. You can't let others do that for you, or you'll go mad." He leaned further forward, his body barely touching the sofa anymore as he gravitated towards Harry. "You and I understand this because of the way we grew up, but others don't. They never will. They try to paper over this awful truth by seeking refuge in the gang, pretend that they're a family. It's a lie, Harry. A lie that they tell themselves until they believe it as well. And because of _that_ , because they will never understand how lonely we humans truly are, we can never truly connect with them."

Harry's thoughts gravitated to the thing strapped to his left arm, and how quickly it had created a distance between him and Ginny.

"No," he said, shaking his head, thinking instead of their glorious moment one year ago, when they first professed their love for each other. "You're wrong."

"You know this too, though," Damien urged. "I can see it in your eyes, Harry. I know, I understand."

As Damien leaned into him, Harry found himself leaning back and tried to quash the desire to reel further away from him, worried about what the man's reaction would be, but before he realized what was happening, Damien's body was free from the sofa, and he fell to his knees on the white tiled floor in one smooth movement. "So embrace this with me, Harry," he begged, pleaded, his eyes smouldering in his contorted, bearded face. He spread his arms. "So that we may be lonely together but find distraction in each other's arms."

Harry sat frozen in his chair, indecisive, unsure how to react to the man in front of him. A moment later, he saw his opportunity, and almost magically, the spell that held his body in place was lifted.

He stood up, Damien mirroring his movement instantly. They approached each other now, but stopped at the same time, mere inches apart. Harry stared at Damien, blood rushing in his ears as Damien grabbed him by the shoulders, and their lips crashed together.

Harry was terribly aware of every single sensation. He felt their beards come together, the hairs rubbing against each other, as well as the feeling of wet lips on his. He felt the man's hands roam over his back in a frenzied, almost desperately chaotic dance.

 _Is this what this feels like_ , he thought, his breath coming out in short, stunned bursts.

His mind reeled, completely thrown off by the muscled chest and flat belly. The bulge of the other man's erection pressed to his crotch. He kept his eyes firmly shut, numb as Damien's tongue entered Harry's mouth. And his body reacted. He felt a spark in his hips, he felt his energy rising, growing, and he knew that Damien sensed this as he pressed harder, forcing Harry's head back. The man smelled his chance for that release and was going to use Harry's body to get it.

And then his reeling, screaming thoughts made way for his unconsciousness that floated up through the maelstrom. His body was still there, locked in a desperate embrace with Damien, but his consciousness had left his body, and travelled back, far back to a previous life. He no longer experienced the strong, manly body pressed up against him, but instead a feminine one. Every detail – her small hands, her breasts, her smooth, warm lips, her wet tongue, and her flowery scent – it flitted through his mind, image on image, one after the other. And his breath hitched in his throat.

He pulled away from Damien, gasping for breath, his lips slick with saliva. Opening his eyes, he saw brown eyes staring back at him, burning with intense arousal. Different ones. He was not in Ginny's embrace, but in Damien's.

He froze. Damien froze for a moment before leaning forward to capture his lips once more, but Harry moved back to avoid the contact.

"W-what…" Damien stammered, his voice hoarse. His breath came out with quick, raspy noises, hot against Harry's face.

"I…" Harry began, but he was cut off when Damien's arms slid off his back, found his chest, and then _pushed_ with frightening intensity. Harry stumbled back and almost lost his balance. He spread his arms, desperate to find grip somewhere, and he knocked a plant off its small table. The vase crashed to the ground, smashing into bits, sending dirt all over the floor.

"Damien–" he began, but the man charged at him. He ducked to the side and narrowly avoided him. They stood facing each other again.

"Please, calm down," Harry pleaded, knowing that his chance to get his wand back were as good as squandered.

"Calm down?" Damien growled, his voice low. "Calm down, you say? I'll kill you, you bastard!" He charged at Harry again, and they crashed together with a smack that left Harry's head spinning. His hands found the man's broad shoulders and he tried to push him back, but he couldn't dodge Damien's swinging arm, and it connected with his temple.

The impact was enough to weaken Harry's grasp, but he let himself fall forward, pushing the man back with all his weight, and they separated again.

Their eyes met, and Harry's hand flew instinctively to his back pocket, where his wand was, but there was nothing there. And Damien _did_ have a wand.

" _Expelliarmus!"_ he cried, and Harry was knocked off his feet, smacking against the legs of one of the dinner table chairs behind him, and a jolt of pain shot through his back.

Damien stepped forward. "I saw your expression," he growled, towering above him, his face monstrously contorted with fury.

"Please, stop," Harry breathed, placing his hands on the floor and trying to crawl backward. But Damien simply took a step forward, and his boot landed on Harry's hand.

"You were repulsed when I kissed you," the man said, gritting his teeth. The weight on Harry's hand increased more and more, each time crossing a boundary of pain that he hadn't thought could be surpassed.

"You're hurting me," he whimpered, trying and failing to pull away. "Please, Damien, stop."

Damien pressed down one more time, his hand giving way more and more. Then he heard a snap, and he cried out as white-hot pain seared through his arm. Damien then finally lifted his boot, but the pain didn't go. Harry looked down, his breath panicked, to see a red footprint drawn on the skin of his hand. Damien then yanked him up by the collar of his jumper as if he weighed nothing.

The man pulled him close to his face, and Harry leaned his head back as far as he could.

"What was the plan of this, huh?" he sneered. He spat in Harry's face. "I knew you didn't come here for this. I _knew_ it! You almost had me fooled with your nervousness and your sweet words, you know? But I _knew_ you didn't want me! I just didn't want to believe it. But now…" He let Harry's collar go with one hand and slapped his cheek with the back of his hand, rocking his head back, his teeth sinking into his tongue. The strong taste of blood spread through his mouth. "Now I have nothing to hold me back anymore." He spun on his heel, in the same movement dragging Harry with him and tossing him to the ground.

He tried to catch his fall, but his broken hand did nothing to break the speed. His head crashed down on the tiles, and for a moment he lost his vision. He floated in blackness, but was dragged back to reality when Damien's boot impacted his arse and tailbone. Another jolt shot through his spine and a whimpering noise escaped his throat.

"I hate you!" Damien roared. "You betrayed me and I hate you!" Harry crawled back but couldn't dodge another kick aimed at his knee, and he felt it explode in pain.

Damien lost any vestige of his humanity as he pummelled Harry's defenceless form. His breath was a raspy, growling noise, spit flew out of his mouth, and his eyes, previously burning with intensity, now rolled wildly in his sockets. "I hate you!" he shouted over and over again as impact after impact knocked the breath from Harry's lungs. "I'm going to kill you, you bastard!"

Harry was sure he was going to die. The relentless rain of punches and kicks melted into one, and he stopped being aware of them as his panicked mind severed his connection with his body once again. And then his eyes fell on the glass coffee table towering above him.

" _I charmed the cups to keep them boiling hot,"_ Damien's words echoed in his head. They seemed like a lifetime ago, but slowly the meaning swam to the forefront of his pain-addled mind.

_Boiling hot._

Harry waited until Damien paused in his strikes to take a growling breath. Seizing his moment, Harry pushed himself up onto his knees with his uninjured hand and grabbed one of the charmed teacups. Hot tea spilled over the edges onto his bare wrist, but he was numb to the pain. Mustering up all his energy and tensing his muscles, he threw the cup at Damien.

The hot liquid landed on his crotch, and Damien roared in pain as the glass cup left Harry's hand and fell to the tiles, bouncing twice and then shattering into a thousand pieces.

Harry pushed himself onto his feet, batting away Damien's swinging arms and ducking past him for the other tea cup. He twisted around, coming face to face with the other man, and threw the steaming, boiling tea in his face.

Damien cried in inhuman agony and sunk to his knees. He brought his shaking hands up to his face and clawed at the red, blistering skin, trying desperately to wipe the fluid off his skin and eyes.

Harry knew this was the only opportunity he would get, and he smashed the heavy cup in his hand down on Damien's head. The glass shattered as it impacted the skull, and shards rained down on the ground, adding to the glass that was already there.

Harry shoved Damien's kneeling, limp body aside and ran for the hallway. His eyes fitted from the study to the stairs leading to the second floor, and he briefly considered searching for his wand. But he decided against that, remembering Lydia's warning that Damien could portkey in bodyguards. He had to leave, now. He found the basket with keys still in the same place where it used to be, and he quickly found the car keys. In an adrenaline-fuelled burst of magical energy, he felt the locking charm on the door be dispelled and he ran out the front door, limping towards the car as he became more and more aware of the battered state of his body. He opened the car door and collapsed in the driver's seat.

He let out a shuddering breath and let himself fall forward, his head landing on the steering wheel. As soon as he collapsed, he veered up again. Damien was still in the house, and Harry didn't know if he was awake or not. Either way, he had no time to lose. Despite his trembling hands, and his useless left hand, he was able to stick the key into the keyhole underneath the wheel, and he turned it. The car roared to life, the headlights turned on, and the dashboard lit up. He got into gear, awkwardly using his right hand for it, and turned onto the road with screeching tires.

The roads were empty and lit up with streetlights. It had gotten dark during the events that had transpired in Damien's home. Harry's mind kept on wandering back to vivid images of what had just happened, and he had to blink, shake his head or slap his forehead to keep his attention on the dark road ahead.

"Where do I go now," he mumbled as he got closer to the roundabout that turned onto the motorway. "Gotta go to Lydia. Lydia… At the headquarters… Gotta go to the headquarters." His vision faded and faded as his eyelids drooped and threatened to shut. He shook his head. "Stay focused, Potter," he reminded himself out loud, squinting his eyes. "Stay focused, just a bit longer… Get Lydia, fly to the Portkey, get the ferry, and then go home… And then maybe a bath… And sleep… And a good meal."

A car honked and he was torn from his fantasy about a juicy steak on a big plate that was decorated with chips and vegetables. He'd veered far to the left, almost onto the other direction. "Stay focused…" he repeated, his words barely intelligible now.

Minutes, hours, maybe days later for all Harry knew, he turned off the motorway and onto Crumlin Road. He parked the car on the pavement a good distance away from the headquarters, afraid that others might recognise it, or that they might have already been alerted by Damien.

He switched off the car, undid the safety belt and yanked his Invisibility Cloak from his pocket. A sharp pain shot through his back as he bent his body at an awkward angle to cover himself with one hand while he was still seated.

"C'mon Potter," he murmured. "You'll have all the time in the world to sort yourself out later."

Then he opened the door and staggered out into the cold rainy night. A group of tourists that happened to walk by stopped and stared at the car door that seemingly opened on its own, but Harry had already passed them before he could see what their reaction would be. He limped through the street, towards the dark shadow of the headquarters in the distance. Image on image raged through his head, his heart pounded with a ferocious intensity as he imagined Damien catching up with him and taking revenge on what he'd done to him… But what kept him going was a mental image of a ferry waiting in the docks, ready to take him away from here.

The headquarters seemed tranquil on the outside. There were no gang members screaming and running around, looking for him, but Harry knew better than to let that give him a small glimmer of hope. He gingerly opened the gate and hurried towards the main entrance as fast as his battered body allowed, pausing at the front doors before pushing them open. They swung open away from him, and he barely stayed on his feet as he stumbled into the main hall.

The lights were still on, and there were two people standing guard. He recognised one of them as Bobby, the other as Ian, the bloke whose head got turned into a pig's head by Lydia. The two exchanged a glance, then rushed forward to the front doors.

 _They know_ , was what flew through Harry's frightened thoughts as the two men ran past him and he barely avoided bumping into them.

"Is he here?" Bobby asked, his strangely high-pitched voice trembling.

"Dunno," Ian said. "You reckon if he were disillusioned, we'd at least see something, right?"

"You think so?"

"In this light? Definitely."

"Does he have a cloak, then?"

"Dunno. Damien didn't say."

"Damien wasn't really in the state to talk," Bobby said.

Harry skulked backward, no longer paying attention to what they were saying, and made his way to the opened kitchen door, where Lydia said she would be waiting for him.

He froze in the door opening. The room was empty. The lights were turned off, the used dishes on the counter only illuminated by light falling in from the windows.

He couldn't stick around to wait for her, even though part of him wanted to, and so he snuck out of the main hallway, towards the underground tunnel.


	12. Chapter 11

The recollections of Belfast sank away, and Harry was coaxed to awareness by birdsong. One by one, his senses found their connection with his brain again, and the surroundings floated gently into his mind, which was still dull and numb from the long slumber he'd been in. And so he heard birdsong he didn't recognise, smelled an earthly fragrance he was unfamiliar with, and felt a soft warm bed underneath him, but he did not remember how he ended up there. And then he opened his eyes. He saw snow white walls, supported with natural-looking wooden beams that stood at equal distance to each other, and connected with another beam running along the juncture of the walls and the equally white ceiling. His eyes drifted down, to the fur blankets that lay ever so softly on his naked skin.

Naked…

He gently lifted the covers to take a look underneath them, and to his relief, everything that should be there was still there. But that did leave the question as to how he ended up here, and what happened to his clothes.

He had closed his eyes and was ready to place an order in his jumbled, vague memories, when the wooden door at the end of the room opened, and a woman walked in. Harry let the blanket fall back on his nude body in shock when her startling green eyes met his.

"You're awake at last!" she cried, while Harry merely stared at her. She was very tall and could barely stand up straight under the oddly low ceiling. She had brown hair that fell down around her face in wild, untamed directions, and her skin was pale and smooth, allowing her red lips to stand out noticeably. She was wearing a loose, white dress that seemed to float downward, along her tall body, in a cascading river of creases. Harry took all that in, from top to toe, as she approached his bed.

"How are you feeling?" she then asked. She arrived at the side of his bed, and Harry turned his head to keep looking at her. His eyes then fell onto the bedside stool and table. On the latter stood a wooden bowl filled with water. The woman sat down onto the stool, and it disappeared under her bright white dress.

"Not that talkative, then?" she asked. She reached out a hand and laid it on his forehead. Her touch was not as delicate as he expected, as she had many creases and calluses on her hand palm and fingertips. It was a strange contrast to her otherwise flawless complexion.

"Who are you?" Harry said, acutely aware of the lingering hand, tracing his forehead and cheeks.

"Oh, how silly of me to forget," she said, her lips curling into a pleasant smile. "My name is Anoushka, and I've been looking after you ever since that night where I found you in the forest."

"In the forest…" Harry trailed off, the horrific night coming back to him in flashes. "Hang on… You were the one who saved me? You pulled me out of that pool?"

"I did." Her smile slid off her face again and made way for an upset expression. "And if I had been just a bit later, it wouldn't have mattered at all. You are very, very lucky to be alive, honey." She laid the back of her hand on his forehead and clucked her tongue. "Still a bit warm."

"How long have I been here?" Harry asked. "And _where_ am I?"

"You're in my little house in the woods," Anoushka replied, removing her hand from his forehead again, to Harry's relief. She frowned. "As for how long… I don't know exactly. Many days, though. You have been very ill."

"Well… then I suppose I should thank you," Harry said, meeting her bright green eyes. She looked kind enough, and the fact that he hadn't been killed in all that time was a good sign, but trust did not come easy anymore with him. Not after Damien.

"It is my pleasure," she replied. Her smile seemed genuine. "You're not the first person who gets lost in this forest. It's deceptively large, especially for Muggles who think they can trust on their maps." She cocked her head slightly. "You should rest some more. You still haven't fully recovered from your ordeal."

"I can't, though," Harry protested. "I've got to go to London, and it's very important." He tried to sit up, but Anoushka extended her hand, and with it created some invisible force that pushed his body back into the soft mattress.

"I don't think that's such a good idea," she said.

"What do you mean? Look, I'm very thankful that you've saved me and kept me alive all this time. But this is really, really important, and it can't wait. So please just let me go."

"Whatever it is," she said, her hand still hovering with authority over him, her voice caring and full of empathy. "I doubt that it is more important than your own body. I will allow you out of bed later, and then you will see that you are not in any state to leave yet. It is very far from the nearest settlement. I will let you go once you are ready to travel there."

"Can't you Apparate me there?" Harry asked.

"Apparate?" she asked, her brows furrowing in confusion.

"Yeah, Apparate."

"What is that?"

"Erm…" Harry began, but then he fell silent and he stared at her with wide eyes. "You… You don't know what Apparation is?"

"Apparation? No, I don't know what that is."

"But you are a witch, right?" Harry said slowly.

"Why, yes, I am."

"Then how do you not know what Apparation is?"

"How could I know that, if it's something I've never heard of?" she asked, a spark of mirth in her eyes.

"Erm…" Harry wanted to scratch his head, but his hands were still tied to the bed by an invisible force. "What school did you go to, then?"

"School?" Her silent amusement changed into open laughter. "Oh dear, school," she snickered. "That is a long story, oh my."

"I'm all ears," Harry said, feeling his ears redden while she laughed at his question.

"I am sure that you are," she replied. "But you also need to rest some more. Your questions will be answered, do not worry about that, but not now."

"I feel fine, though," Harry challenged.

"I do not doubt that," she said, her coy smile saying the opposite. "Anyway, I will leave you now. Try to get some more sleep. You will feel better for that."

She stood up and moved towards the door. When she opened it, she turned around to face him once more.

"Trust me," she said, emphasising those two words as she leaned over towards his lying form. "You will feel much better, but it will take time."

Harry chose not to say a thing as she smiled one last time at him and closed the door behind her. He heard her footsteps disappear gradually, and silence descended on the room he was in once more.

He tried to sit up, but then discovered that the spell she had cast on him was not lifted. Strangely, it didn't disturb him. In fact, all his emotions slowly slipped away as his eyelids started drooping. Before he knew it, he descended into a deep sleep once more.

* * *

The words of the woman called Anoushka were proven right. When he woke up again, he felt much more alive than the previous time. In fact, he hardly remembered what had even happened the last time he had been awake.

He looked around the room he was in. Not much had changed, but he noticed more details now, such as the dark wooden closet that stood against the wall to his right, the sunlight coming in from a window behind his headrest, and a silky thing hanging over the end of his bed.

He sat up straight, a shiver rolling down his spine from the feeling of warm animal fur sliding over his naked body, and bent over to touch the garment. The silk had a green and brown colour, and was so fine that it slipped through his fingers like water. It reminded him of his Invisibility Cloak, and that made him wonder what had happened to the clothes he'd worn before he was taken here.

He became more restless as question after question about this house, his condition, and the woman who lived here, piled on top of each other in his thoughts. He took the silk garment in both hands and held it up to reveal that it had the shape of a bathrobe. Now that he had something to cover his body, he decided that it was time for answers.

The robe was not translucent, to his relief, but the slick and light material still made him feel as good as naked in it. That he didn't wear any underwear underneath it didn't help matters either.

He took one more look around the room, and then moved towards the window, to see what he could see through it. The glass was slightly smudged, and sunlight shone directly against the pane, making it hard to see through it. But what he did see, was a mix of deciduous and evergreen trees forming the solid edge of a forest. He couldn't see past the first rows of trees.

He turned away from the window. Exiting the bedroom and found himself in an uncomfortably small hallway. He could barely walk through it without both shoulders touching the wooden walls. He awkwardly turned right after closing the door behind him and descended down the narrow wooden stairwell.

* * *

I want to bring your attention now to a broader context, in this instance the case of a missing person called Mary. The details are rather vague in my mind, as my sources primarily consist of interviews and a diary, but if my estimations are correct, the following conversation between two police officers happened around the same time as Harry had first rose out of bed after his coma.

In the interest of respecting every human in this story for what they are (human beings), I will precede the conversation with more information about Mary.

Mary was not a witch, and as far as I'm aware, she had no knowledge about the magical world that exists parallel to ours. She was a middle class girl from one of the nearby villages. Her mother and father both worked long hours in Wrexham. The reason for this is that Mary's father, called William, grew up in grinding poverty, during the time when Wales de-industrialised at a rapid pace. Many of his friends never got out of that cycle of poverty, alcohol addiction and general lack of direction in their life. William did, though, through an entirely circumstantial event that cannot be called anything other than pure luck. He found a lottery ticket on the side of the road, among glass shards of a beer bottle and discarded needles that were used for heroin. He later called it the principal reason why he had come to despise cynicism, because in that moment he decided that it couldn't harm anyone if he simply grabbed it. On his way home, he laughed internally at the idea of that exact ticket being the winning one. Recalling that moment still gets a laugh out of him today.

The draw was a week later, and William, who lived in a dingy apartment with two mates, was surprised when the doorbell rang early in the morning. He answered the door in his nightclothes, and was greeted with a camera crew, two smiling TV hosts, a bouquet of flowers, and an enormous cheque that informed him he had won 100,000 pounds.

Everything changed for William. He used the money wisely, surprisingly wisely for someone who suffered from alcohol addiction. He got a degree in accounting, found a well-paying job in Wrexham, and one day, on a birthday party organised by one of his co-workers, he met his future wife, called Diane. She had been bored out of her mind that evening and had only come because it was her brother's birthday, plus it had been one of the few opportunities that they had in their busy lives to see each other. That boredom melted away the moment her eyes fell on that new arrival. He was balding, had an unkept beard, and his teeth were not entirely straight, but there was something in his eyes that she found irresistible. Perhaps it was the joy he found in everything that other people either took for granted or rolled their eyes at, from their co-workers' terrible jokes to the leftover Christmas crackers he happily pulled with others. He truly felt like a fish out of the water in that period in his life, and the happiness positively radiated from him.

Either way, she did what her mother had always told her to do, and that was to not let a person like this get away from her by abiding the proper decorum of letting the man make the first move. She introduced herself to him with the excuse of handing him a slice of lemon drizzle. Two years later they married.

They settled down in one of the villages near the city, appreciating the silence, proximity to nature, and the space it provided them. They still live there today. They had one child together, and that child was called Mary.

For her, all the ingredients were there for a lonely childhood. Her parents had long days at work, she had no siblings, and they lived quite far from a big city. There were two twin boys of her age in the village, but she never really got on well with them. That bad blood between her and them started one day when she found a family of frogs in the pool behind her house. All animals fascinated her. She liked the sounds they made, the way they moved, the way they looked out of their eyes. It was all relatable, she thought, so curiously similar to the way humans behaved, but still so different. Watching animals thus became something she did every day, when both her parents were off at work and she had nothing else to do. Her parents didn't mind, as long as she stayed in the village, and didn't enter the forest that bordered the settlement.

This place was one of the few natural areas in Wales that was untouched by the radical changes the country underwent in the nineteenth century, and it had long been the source of local rumours and strange tales. William and Diane heard that once in a while someone would get lost there, and that the previous owner of their house was in fact so uncomfortable to be living next to such a forest that he had decided to move away. Mary was unaware of those worried whispers in the village but was more than happy to keep her adventurous explorations limited to the backyards and hedges of the hamlet.

So, when she saw the family of frogs sitting next to that small, shallow pool, she got on her knees, mud smearing her small legs and dress. She bent over, watching the frogs closely, observing the way they sat there, their eyes looking completely disinterested, but their mouths shaped in such a way that it seemed like they found this situation highly awkward.

The thought of frogs being socially awkward was funny to her, and she wanted to share that thought with the two boys. So she carefully extended her hand until it was in front of the frogs, and let one of them jump on it. She then placed her other hand on top of that, closing the frog in the bowl-shaped hollow between her hands, and then ran as fast as she could without shaking her hands too much, towards where the twins lived.

The boys laughed as she showed the frog to them, but not for the reason she thought they were. They found her appearance; in her summer dress, her legs and dress covered in mud, her hair dishevelled, and her hands carefully holding a frog, hilarious. From that day on they called her Muddy Mary, which was a nickname that stuck to her once she and the two boys went to primary school in the adjacent village.

To the two boys and all their classmates it was a funny name, something they could laugh at together. But Mary hated it and had never understood why they teased her for something she liked so much. Her still developing mind alternated between thinking everyone else was stupid for not understanding her and being convinced that she herself was stupid for liking animals so much.

She went to a different secondary school, but children have a sixth sense when it comes to picking out social outcasts, and they smelled their chance during the introductory round on the first day of school, from the moment that Mary stood up from her chair with shaking limbs and trembling lips to introduce herself. She did eventually find people she could hang out with during the lunch hour, but they weren't really her friends. And her parents, if possible, had even less time for her, when the financial crisis started. Every company in the land had redundancies and was forced to do the same amount of work with half the number of employees, and within a year or two, the entire continent of Europe was chronically working overtime.

Mary was lonely, and she spent the many hours after school outside, still doing the same thing she had always loved to do: observing animals. Her parents still have the notebooks she kept in which she wrote down and sketched what she saw.

She was destined to go to university, she and her teachers realised, and she knew that she wanted to study biology. She had her interview at the University of Edinburgh in December, almost half a year before her final examinations. She passed those with ease, and that summer before university, she took a long trip through Scandinavia. Her parents were worried for her, of course, because she was going to travel all alone for over a month, but those worries proved unfounded. She came back from her trip a new person, her eyes sparkling much like William's had done when he met Diane, as she talked about travelling along with a Dutch aspiring geologist called Issendorp, who had bought her a necklace with a small granite pebble on it that was flecked with a red mineral called Enstatite. The way she talked about it, and the way she caressed her necklace as she talked about it, raised her parents' eyebrows, but they didn't press the matter.

What they couldn't foresee, or maybe simply didn't remember because they spent more time at work than at home, was that the danger didn't lie abroad, but in the forest that bordered their village. Mary went missing on the twentieth of August, just a few days before she was due to leave for Edinburgh. It had been one summer afternoon when she decided that the weather was far too nice to stay inside. The last thing her parents saw of her was a quick wave goodbye, and then the front door closing behind her.

I don't know how long she had been missing by the time Harry Potter himself passed through the village, but it's certain that she had disappeared before he arrived here, because he saw the "MISSING" posters on the lamp posts as he walked by. The policemen in the station in a nearby city were mystified by all these disappearances, and that brings me to the following conversation. It occurred at the closing minutes of the day, while two policemen named Smith and Richards (their first names are unknown to me – again, the details are vague) were sorting out case files and putting them in their appropriate drawer. It was late, and they were the last two persons in their office. Only the night shift was there, and most of the lights in the building were turned off, except for the lamps near their desks and in the reception area, which remained open for night-time emergencies.

One of the case files in the large pile was Mary's and Richards paused when he looked over it.

"Oh, that missing person's case," Smith said. "Did we ever do a count of how many people went missing in that forest?"

"Yeah, I believe we've got somewhere over sixteen cases in our archives," Richards said, not taking his eye off the picture of the smiling young woman. "And those only go back to the twenties."

"You think it's been going on longer than that?" Smith asked, looking up at his colleague with furrowed brows.

"Well, we don't have any hard evidence for it," he said. "But the way the people in that village talk about this… I don't know, I just get the feeling like it's one of those local folk tales, d'you know what I mean?"

"Didn't know you read fairy tales these days, Richards," Smith laughed. His laugh faded when Richards didn't share his mirth. "C'mon, you can't really take those stories seriously, can you?"

"I don't know," Richards said quietly, shaking his head. "There's something really _off_ about this. I didn't say this to the boss the other day, but do you remember the first time we took a look in the village to see if we could find a trace of the girl?"

"Yeah, I do. Was bloody cold that day, as well."

"That it was. But do you remember the way it all felt? The way that forest made you feel when we walked past it?"

Smith fixed Richards a blank stare. "Not really, mate. To be honest with you, I just wanted to get it over with and get inside again. That wind was nasty."

"But you didn't feel anything different about that place?" Richards asked. He was getting a bit more desperate now to find comfort in the thought that he wasn't the only person who had experienced these feelings, but he wasn't finding that in his long-term colleague.

"What are you even trying to say, man?" Smith asked.

"I wish I knew that, y'know. I just _knew_ I felt something there, something completely unnatural. Or maybe "not normal" is a better way to put it. Just the thought of setting a foot in that forest filled me with so much fear that I…" He rubbed his face to try and clear his mind as he tried to bring something into words was not possible to be characterised, framed, or defined in the language that he knew. "Even now, just remembering the edge of the forest… How dark it was, it makes me want to stop thinking about it immediately. But I just can't! I think about it all the time while we're working on this case, and then later when I'm trying to sleep. It just kind of reminds me on this one story I read, you know, somewhere in southern France. There was this village somewhere in the… seventeen hundreds I think? They lived next to a big forest, almost untouched by people, and they started being terrorised by something. The beast of Zhayvodan, I think it's called. No idea how the French spell it. Sheep were killed, children disappeared… and no one knew what it was. Some say it was a wolf, but this one writer said that historians today still don't even know what it was, and that no wolf would ever act the way the villagers described. That's what I kept thinking about with this case. What if there's something out there that we just don't know about? That nobody knows about? That's what I keep considering all the time, just… The idea…"

"Then stop thinking about it," Smith interjected. He breathed in deeply and placed a hand on the other man's shoulder. "Look, mate, we all feel a bit funny at times. I read about that all the time, you know. My wife gets this psychology magazine every month, and you read all these amazing stories in it. There was one about the science of dreaming, and it was absolutely fascinating. They know exactly what's happening and where in our brain, man. They know everything nowadays. And that's how they concluded that we dream to deal with memories and emotion, or something like that at least."

He sighed. "Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that you're filling your head with all these strange things that make no sense whatsoever. Everything is already discovered, we've already seen everything there is to be seen, and what we haven't seen yet is already figured out with all that math scientists use. They can discover planets just by calculating vibrations in stars, did you know that? The time where we could just make stuff up is over, mate. History is over, they said so already back in the nineties. Even George Bush said so! We live in there here and now these days, and everything, all that nonsense you talked about earlier, it's done. We can stick to science and logic now, and we can be happy for that. And do you know what my logic says? My logic says you hate going outside, and you hate the Welsh weather just as much as I do. So just take a rest, forget about it." He squeezed Richards' shoulder with the hand that still rested there. "Maybe even consider stepping back from this case if it's getting to you so much."

"No," Richards interjected. "No, I want to find closure for Mary's family just as much as you do, and we're overstaffed as it is already, with the constant budget cuts."

Smith huffed. "Good point, mate. But it's your call, if you think you can see this through without going bonkers."

"I do."

"That's good to hear, cause we'll need all hands on deck, like you said." The conversation was coming to an end, and they placed the last of the files in their assigned drawers.

Richards turned to Smith as they turned off the last few lights in the office. "What do you reckon that fellow who passed through town earlier has to do with this?"

"That homeless looking one? Grey-brown hair? There's a question. No one in this station had seen him before, right?"

"Strange. We'll bring it up to the others tomorrow, is that an idea?"

"Yeah, let's do that."

"I thought Wales was completely deforested, anyway?"

"Me too."

The conversation trailed off, and the two men said their goodbye as they each stepped in their own car to go home after a long day.

* * *

We will return now to where our protagonist last left off: descending down the narrow wooden stairs of Anouskha's home.

Harry arrived downstairs in a larger open space that was absolutely cluttered with all kinds of tools and other things. In front of him, on the leftmost wall, was a fireplace made of rough cobblestone, with two sofas around it that were made of wood and the same material as the that of robe he was wearing. Half of the firewood was collected in an iron cauldron that stood next to the hearth, the rest lay scattered around it. Lined on the wall were a few shelves that were completely laden with all kinds of random things. Harry saw necklaces, bags, articles of clothes, something he recognised as a back scratcher, binoculars… It was dizzying to behold.

His eyes fell on a particularly remarkable necklace. It had a gold chain band, and its decoration seemed to be an unpolished stone of sorts. He approached it, and took the strange small stone in his hand, hoping that the woman called Anoushka wouldn't mind. It looked to him like simple dark grey granite, but there were specks of red gemstone sprinkled on it. He wondered if it were possible for stone to have smallpox.

In the middle of the room stood the dinner table, which was the only thing that was not cluttered or buried under a mess. There stood six simple wooden chairs around it. And to his right was the kitchen area with a broad counter, plenty of cupboards, and a stone sink that was shaped in such a way that the excess water could flow outside through a small hole. The counter, entirely in the style of the room, was full of utensils, bowls, random fruits and vegetables, and from the cupboards hanging on the wall above it hung strings of dried leaves, fur skins, and something that looked like jerky.

Anoushka wasn't there while he walked around the room and examined it. It was truly furnished for someone who was magical, he thought. There was no faucet on the sink, for example. He also saw a clock on the end of the oft-used kitchen counter that reminded him of the one Molly Weasley also used at The Burrow. It had only one hand, and instead of it showing the time, it pointed at various tasks like "time to harvest the self-peeling sprouts", "time for bed" and "you forgot something". Watching the brass hand swing in a relaxed manner at the bottom of the clock, and taking in the cluttered, lived-in appearance of the room, he felt at that moment as if he were back at The Burrow. The Déja Vu was so strong that he could almost taste the homely smell that seemed to hang around permanently in Molly Weasley's kitchen.

He was snapped out of this reverie when the door outside opened behind him. He spun on the spot and saw Anoushka step in. The doorframe looked small, and she had to duck slightly to fit through. Her eyes immediately fell on him, and her expression immediately morphed from neutral to beaming.

"Oh, it's good to see you're up and about!" she said. She placed a basket she'd been holding in her arm on the table and approached him, her eyes scanning him from top to bottom. "And I see that you have found the robe I've left you in your room as well? Excellent. How does it fit?"

"Erm… Pretty good," Harry replied, rubbing over the smooth fabric nervously as he looked down to see how the robe fitted him.

The woman stood right in front of him, and laid her hands on his cheeks, forcing him to look her in the eye as she gazed at him with narrowed eyes.

"Is everything alright, then?" she asked, moving his head from left to right.

"Yeah," he replied, her touch somewhat muffling his voice.

"You didn't feel dizzy when you walked down the stairs?"

"No, not really."

"Not really?" She aimed his head right at her again. "What do you mean with that?"

"Erm…" Harry swallowed and tried to look everywhere except in her eyes, which was proving to be quite hard, considering she was holding his face with both hands. "I had to lean against the wall some steps."

"Oh, sweetie," she sighed, her expression full of empathy. He was relieved when she finally let go of him. "Do you understand now what I meant? You are in no state to undertake long journeys."

"I suppose," Harry shrugged, feeling that there was some truth in that, but still anxious to get back to London.

"Anyway, enough of that for now," she said. "I suppose you will need to use the loo after being asleep for so long?"

"Erm…" Harry said again, his hand automatically scratching the back of his head after that question.

"You will need to go outside for that. I don't really have anything like plumbing, but there is a creek just beyond the clearing around my house. Just go outside, turn right, and you will see it before you know it."

"Right… Thanks."

Harry took one last hesitating glance at her, then opened the dark wooden front door and stepped outside.

It was cold, he immediately noticed, and the sun was shining without giving off any warmth. The crispy, dry grass under his bare feet tickled his skin, got between his toes, and the uncomfortably cold sensation made him wince. But the woman was right, he _did_ have to go. He did as she said, and turned right, walking towards the edge of the forest and at the same time taking in the clearing that the house stood in. Small crops and rows of plants were strewn around seemingly at random. He saw tomatoes, pepper plants, bean bushes and other plants he was less familiar with. He also heard chicken sounds coming from the other side of the house. Everything he saw suggested that this house was entirely self-sustainable.

He reached the edge of the clearing, and with a fair amount of trepidation he left the sunlight and stepped among the enormous crooked trees. The soil changed from dry grass to humid dirt, toad stools, leaves, and fallen branches. He heard the creek already, the sound of crawling water reverberating through the forest, accompanied with a few birdsongs. As he walked on and listened, fear sparked in his chest and spread over his body. The hairs on his arms and neck stood up straight, and he found it harder to breathe as he thought back to that night when he first arrived in this forest and almost drowned in that leech-filled pool. His feet were now wet, and dirt clung to his skin, and his reeling mind still imagined that horrifying feeling of the soft, slithering creatures sliding over his exposed skin, latching on with their razor-sharp teeth.

He shook his head to chase away the awful memory but froze still when he arrived at the creek. The water didn't look too deep, and the stream was not that wide. He could jump over it with ease. But there was very little light here, evergreen trees surrounded him in this place, their wide, towering shapes giving him a feeling of being enclosed, caged in here. And the water looked just as black as the dark horizon among the trees.

His toes curled, digging themselves into the leaves and dirt underneath. The thought of approaching the dark water, and then exposing his private bits to it, immediately brought about an association with the feeling of the leaches on his exposed skin.

He stood there for what felt like an age, frozen, as he deliberated to approach the water or not.

 _It's a trauma_ , he then told himself when his body started shivering from the cold. _Only one way to get over it._

And so he shuffled closer and closer. His reflection rose up on the rough water surface, like a dark shadow in the sparing amount of light, and when his toes almost touched the water, he stopped. Then he folded open his robe and clenched his jaw when his mind conjured up an image of a leech suddenly jumping up and latching onto his private bits. But he forced himself to stay until he was done, even though a loud voice in his head was screaming at him to turn around immediately.

When he was done, he closed his robe again, turned around, and walked back in the direction of the house. After a few steps that walk turned into a sprint, and by the time he reached the sunny clearing again, he was out of breath. But the sight of the rectangular wooden home, with a raised wing on the far end of it that he presumed was the room he had slept in, filled him with immense relief. He glanced back at the dark forest one last time, and then quickly went inside again.

"Wipe your feet, please," Anoushka said the moment he stepped inside. She looked up at him, and her eyebrows shot up. "Dear me, you look like you were chased by the Devil himself! Is everything alright?"

"Yeah," Harry breathed, wiping his bare feet on the course doormat. "It's just… Seeing the forest and water again wasn't really that pleasant, that's all."

"Oh, honey," she replied, her voice thick with empathy. She approached him and stroked his cheek tenderly. "Do you see now what I mean? It's dangerous out there, and you could get lost so easily!"

"Yeah, I saw," Harry muttered. "But why do you live here, then?"

The corners of her mouth quirked up, and she turned back to the kitchen counter. "That is a long story," she said. She waved her hand at a few drawers. They opened up, and a set of knives emerged, floating up to land gracefully on the kitchen counter. "But as dangerous as it is out there, I manage just fine here. You've seen my gardens: I have everything that I need!"

"I guess I'm just surprised to see someone living like this in Britain," Harry said, walking up to stand closer to her. "I thought that wasn't a thing anymore for a long time now."

"Yes, I can understand why you think that. But I don't really know about the rest of the country, to be honest with you, so I couldn't tell you if there are more people out there who live like me. Anyway," she cut her explanation off, and turned around to face him again. "How about a spot of breakfast?"

Harry's stomach involuntarily rumbled in response. She glanced down at his waist, and giggled. "That answers that." Her hand slid over his back and grabbed his shoulder, and she steered him towards the dinner table. "Sit down at the table, sweetie, and I will take care of everything," she said. "I don't have a lot here, but I do have eggs, meat, tomatoes and beans, from those plants you've seen in the garden. Will that do for you?"

 _Don't have a lot?_ Harry thought in astonishment, but he simply said yes to her.

She beamed, and then turned to the kitchen to start cooking.

The next fifteen minutes or so, it was a blur of movement as she collected the ingredients, had them cut by the set of charmed knives that floated above the messy counter, threw the contents in several pans, which she then charmed so that they flipped their contents regularly.

"Perhaps it's time you tell me a bit more about yourself," she said. The eggs, minced meat that looked like beef, tomatoes and beans were now calmly being prepared in the charmed pans. "I would love to know what your name is, for example, and where you are from."

Harry sat down at the table, and sighed. The chair was a bit too large for him, and only his toes reached the wooden floor.

"Like you said, it's a long story," he began, smiling weakly at her. "My name is Dudley, and I'm from Little Whinging. That's near London."

"London?" she asked, the tone of her voice higher than normal. "That is quite far from here, Dudley. How did you get here?"

"I walked," he responded.

"From London?"

"Not exactly."

The meal was done, and there was a pause in their conversation as she piled the vegetables, eggs, and strange looking minced meat onto a blue painted plate.

"There we are." She slid the plate under his nose and placed her hand on his shoulder once more. "Oh, and before I forget…"

She turned around again. The sweet aromatic smells of the meal on front of Harry entered his nose. Anoushka opened up one of the lower cupboard summoned a wooden bowl to her, and scooped something inside it. She turned back to him and placed the bowl next to the plate, and Harry looked inside to see a light brown broth there, with some bits of herb floating around in it.

"Bone broth," she explained. "Plus some leftover vegetables and meat that I didn't use. I waste nothing here." She paused. "Go on, then!" she then said. "Try it."

Harry looked at her, then at the broth. He grabbed the bowl with two hands, brought it to his lips. The warm liquid entered his mouth. It tasted salty, but good.

"There's a good lad," she said. "And if you need some more after you're done eating, just tell me, and I'll make something for you. I'll be outside for a while."

"What about you, though?" he asked. "You're not hungry?"

"Very sweet of you, pumpkin," she said. From this close, with her head hovering above him, he saw the small wrinkles appearing next to her green eyes as she smiled warmly at him. "I have already eaten before you were awake, so don't worry about me." She squeezed his shoulder, and then her hand slowly slid off. "Go on then, tuck in!"

Harry glanced at her one last time, then grabbed the wooden spoon she'd given him, and scooped up a bit of the minced meat. She looked on as he placed it in his mouth, chewed on it and then swallowed. It tasted a bit like pork, he thought, but a bit sweeter. It took a while to get used to the taste of the chewy flesh.

"It tastes good," he finally said after swallowing it.

"Thank you, sweetie," she said, smiling warmly at him. She reached out and squeezed his left arm, which laid on the table next to the plate, and in doing so she narrowly missed the straps of his wand holster. She then trailed up, lightly brushing his arm, and finally she ruffled his hair. "Eat up, then," she said, her tone warm, and friendly. "And if you need anything else, just tell me. I will be outside, in the gardens."

Harry, still feeling tingly where she had touched his head, shoulder, and arm, hesitantly continued eating, and after the first few bites he started to realise how famished he really was. The plate and bowl were quickly empty, and for the first time in ages, after his time on the run and those anxiety-filled meals with the Buckriders, Harry felt like he had eaten more than enough. He glanced at the sofas near the fireplace, which wasn't lit at the moment, and sat down in one of them, figuring Anoushka wouldn't mind.

He closed his eyes, relishing the feeling of a full stomach, and dozed off before he was even aware of how tired he really was.


	13. Chapter 12

The old clock on the wall ticked away at the same tempo, the fire cracked occasionally, and other than that, it was completely silent in Grimmauld Place.

It had been a week or two since Ginny had last spoken to Craig Robertson in that busy pub in Cornwall. Since then, not much had happened. He had sent her a small note in the meantime, explaining that he had lost Harry's trail somewhere in Northumberland, and that there had been some unrest in Belfast, but that was the only news she'd received. She had expected that. Craig was going out of his way for this, besides his already busy job as Auror. And on top of that he had to somehow keep his search hidden from the Ministry. The Auror office was of vital importance to the new minister, Craig had explained to her. Not only was it the institution which had to follow up on Lord Castelreagh's promise that he would improve the safety for Magicals in Britain, but it was also the office that had been led by the two people he despised most: Kingsley Shacklebolt and Harry Potter. That was why the office received an extraordinary amount of attention from the Lord, and it meant that Craig had to be extra careful not to give off any hints that he was looking for Harry privately as well.

"Robards, the Head Auror, thinks that he's hiding somewhere in Belfast, based on those rumours we read earlier," the man had explained in one of their previous meetings. "But we both know how trustworthy the _Daily Prophet_ really is, especially when it comes to Harry. I have had to patrol there in a few instances, but as you know, they've amounted to nothing."

"So he could be anywhere," Ginny had responded, her shoulders slumping. It became clearer by the day that Harry really was well and truly without a trace.

That conversation occurred in May, and it was now nearing the end of October. Ginny's life went on. There had been an initial slump a year ago, where she lost her starting spot in the Harpies because she was too unfocused, according to the coach. But it had been Hermione who had managed to shake her out of that mood.

"You're stronger than this," she had bluntly said. "And just because Harry's not here, does not mean that we can put everything on hold, just because we miss him. It's no use, and I can bloody well tell you that he wouldn't want you to let go of yourself in this way either. So, you're going to get your mind back on your life, and I'm going to focus on pushing out this baby, and we're going to do our damn best at those things."

"Alright, miss mucky language, calm down," Ginny had muttered, bemused at the tone her normally reserved and proper friend was using. Hermione during the latter stages of her pregnancy had been quite the experience.

But Ginny took Hermione's advice to heart, and her life went on. But every day she came home to that big, dark mansion on Grimmauld Place. Every night she had to cook her own meals, wash up afterwards, and then settle down for some reading, or to listen to the radio near the fireplace. And every night she fell asleep in the large two-person bed in the master bedroom, listening to the old house creak and breathe around her. It was the silence that got to her, and the knowledge that just beyond the heavy door at the end of their bed, there was a large, dark, and empty mansion. She wasn't built for this. She needed company, and that's why she found herself staying at the Burrow more and more often as the year went on. Her parents had lost most of the red colour in their hair, and especially her mother had started to walk a bit crooked, but the welcome Ginny received when she stepped through the fireplace was always just as warm and familiar as it always had been.

She also spent more time with Teddy and Andromeda when the former came back for his summer holidays at the end of June. They went to the same beach they had gone to a year earlier, and although the weather was fantastic, the day was still marred by Harry's absence. Going back to the place where they had first professed their love for each other hadn't been a good idea. Teddy, who had never been good at hiding his emotions, was a lot more quiet than usual that day, and his hair was a dull brown colour. He still had far too much energy for swimming and running around like an overly excited Labrador, but she could tell that his heart wasn't really in it.

She had been overthinking all that while they walked back at the end of the afternoon, their skin tanned, their fingers wrinkled from being in the water so long, and their hair stiff with salt. Right before they had entered Andy's home again, Ginny was surprised when Teddy, now half a head taller than her, had drawn her into a hug.

"Thanks for being here for me," he had simply said. When he let go of her again, he was right back to his usual awkward countenance. No matter what her mood was, thinking back to that moment had since then always brought a smile to her face.

But the endless waiting was maddening to her. Even nights out with her teammates didn't do much to make it pass by faster. And Craig, with the help of Ron and Hermione, had convinced Ginny not to actively get involved in the search for Harry.

"Harry's a wanted man now," the Auror had said to her. "They know you and him are in a relationship, and they know you were there on the night that he disappeared. You're being watched, Ginny. And not just by the Aurors. You know Lord Castlereagh is an influential man, and apprehending Harry is one of his utmost priorities. It's only logical to assume that he has eyes everywhere to make sure that he'll succeed at that."

And that was why she was forced to take a step back and let Craig do the searching, even though she found absolutely no satisfaction in that. She had nothing else to take her mind off the gloom that had descended over number 12. She had initially found a distraction in the shape of the attic in the mansion, but the novelty and use of that had quickly worn off after she'd finished the book _Tracing the Elder Wand_. On the whole, therefore, she had nothing else to do during those quiet hours than to conjure up scenarios and events which she looked forward to with impatient desire, like Quidditch matches, visits to Ron and Hermione, her parents at The Burrow, and Teddy, and secret meetings with Craig. But they never really lived up to the satisfaction that she imagined she'd find in them. No matter how enjoyable they were, the one event in the future that she was looking forward to, was Harry's return. But that wasn't happening any time soon. And so her life consisted only of fixing her hopes on the future, finding pleasure in the anticipation, consoling herself for the present, and preparing for another disappointment. After that, the only thing she could do was reminiscence about how everything had gone so wrong to lead to the present situation.

The clock ticked on, and with every second her hopes of Harry appearing again diminished even further. This could not go on for much longer.

* * *

When Harry woke up again, he found himself back in the bed, under the same fur covers. Again, he was naked. After wracking his sleep-fogged brain for some considerable time, he had to conclude that Anoushka had carried him here, taken off his robe, and then tucked him in.

He felt blood rushing to his head when the implications sunk in, and the first thought that entered his mind was that he would never again be able to look her in the eyes. But then that made way for a more temperate, warmer feeling of gratitude that she had taken care of him in that way.

The latter thought was the one that stuck, but he did also conclude that it was time to ask the woman what she had done with the clothes he'd worn when he got here. More importantly: what had happened to his Invisibility Cloak. The Elder Wand, he didn't have to ask about that. It was still strapped to his left arm, the repelling charms still worked, and the piece of wood touching him still felt unusually cold, like it had frozen solid to his skin.

That quickly and habitually filtered to the back of his mind, and he would not think about it again for the rest of the day. He threw the heavy covers off him, exposing his pale, nude body to the sunlight filtering in from the window, and after slipping into his robe, he went downstairs.

The smells of roasted vegetables and fish entered his nose as he descended down the narrow staircase, and when he entered the room, he saw Anoushka bent over the counter on the other end of the room. Her long, brown hair was tied into a knot, and the light dress she was wearing emphasised her wide hips and round rear.

When she heard him approach, she turned around and beamed at him.

"Good morning, sweetie," she said. "You're up early today, aren't you?"

"What time is it?" Harry asked, yawning and stretching his arms.

"Oh, it's…" She turned to watch the clock that stood on the end of the counter, and he followed her gaze. The dial swung lazily, and then raised itself up slightly to one side. "Time for breakfast," she concluded, looking back at him.

"Right."

"I hope you like fish," she said, pointing at the pan where a hovering spatula was in the process of flipping a mixture of flints of fish meat and onion. "I caught a carp this morning from a nearby lake, so we'll be eating the filet, and I'm just at the moment scraping all the remaining meat off the rib cage." Harry moved to stand next to her and saw what remained of the carp. The meat on the sides were already in the pan, and the head was gone as well. "With most things I just charm the tools to do the work for me," she said, grabbing a large knife off the counter and setting it against the exposed rib cage. "But that can be a bit imprecise sometimes, so I prefer doing this sort of task by hand." To emphasise that, she began scraping the knife along the length of the fish. The knife running against the rib cage made a rattling noise, and Harry was surprised at how firm the ribs sounded. Anoushka was quickly done with that side of the fish, and she unceremoniously flipped it around, the tailfin making a wet slapping noise on the cutting board it lay one, and then repeated the scraping process on the other side.

"There we are," she said when that side was done as well. "We're going to turn this remaining meat into fish cakes for tonight," she said, placing her hand on the pile of meat that she had amassed on the corner of the cutting board. Then she pointed at the exposed ribs. "These I'll turn into fishing hooks later, and then I'll use the guts as bait."

"Clever," Harry commented.

"Thank you, sweetie," she said, pausing to smile at him. "Now, I think your breakfast is done, so sit down and I'll get you a plate."

Harry nodded, and did as she asked. He swung his legs, which did not quite reach the floor, back and forth as he watched her wash her hands before grabbing a plate and piling the fish and grilled vegetables on it.

"There you are," she said, placing the plate in front of him. Just like yesterday, she took that moment to stroke his shoulder. "Now make sure you eat all of this," she added, her expression stern as she leaned in towards him. Her hand moved from his shoulder to his upper arm. "You've awfully thin, and you need to get some strength back in you after being ill for so long." She squeezed his arm, and then patted it.

"Thanks," he said, looking down at his plate, hoping she would catch the hint and let go of him.

She watched him eat the first few bites and then finally left his side, citing that she had to do some more work in the gardens.

Harry stared at the door through which she left and considered the uneasy feelings he felt when she stood close to him, looked at him while hardly blinking her eyes, or touched him on his arms, shoulders, and back. On the one hand it often made the hairs on his arms and neck stand up straight, and he was sure that she saw and felt his intense discomfort as well. But on the other hand, she had saved him from certain death, sheltered him, and was now helping him to get back to full health.

Hesitantly, he took a few bites from the mixture of vegetables and fish. It tasted amazingly full and rich on his tongue.

Perhaps it was the strange clock on the counter, or maybe it was the fact that the little house stood in the middle of nowhere and was entirely made out of wood, but, in a way, this place felt like the Burrow to him. It wasn't the same, of course, but he couldn't think of another place where he could feel so at ease, so taken care of. And that warm feeling it made him feel in his stomach, was probably the reason why he thought of that comparison.

He'd finished his plate by the time Anoushka entered the house again, her hands, feet, and dress covered in dirt.

"You've eaten it all?" she asked, nodding at the plate, and her eyes lit up when she saw it was empty. "Very good! Was it good?"

"Delicious, Anoushka," he admitted, leaning back to give space for his expanded stomach.

"Thank you, sweetie," she said warmly. After wiping her feet on the rug and patting down her dress, she moved towards the sink to wash her hands. Along the way she grabbed the empty plate in front of him and placed it back on the kitchen counter. "Was it enough? Would you like some more?"

"Oh, no, I'm absolutely full, thank you," he sighed.

"You don't eat too much normally, do you?" she asked, briefly turning around from the sink to look at him.

"Normally I do," Harry said. "But lately… I had a strange time lately, y'know? Lots of stress. And when I get stressed, I'm just not hungry at all."

She clucked her tongue. "But you seem to be getting your appetite back now, at least. I hope you feel a bit more at ease here than before, wherever that was."

"I do," he confirmed. And he realised that he really did. Despite the surrounding woodlands, or perhaps precisely because of that, he felt safe here in the wooden house. It certainly helped that he was not surrounded anymore by drug dealers and other criminals who would want to kill him if they got wind of his real name. It seemed so distant now.

"Good," Anoushka said, shaking him out of his thoughts. "You can stay here as long as you like, sweetie. I don't often get visitors here, and I've always loved to take care of them. So ,don't you feel like you're imposing on me, do you hear?" To emphasise her stern words, she waggled her now-clean finger at him.

"I'll try not to," he replied, grinning ruefully. "I've been imposing on others for a long time now, so I'm sort of starting to know how to behave."

* * *

During the first period after he'd woken up in Anoushka's house, Harry slept most of the time: after dinnertime till late in the mornings, and then once more in the afternoon. It left him drowsy and he quickly lost any sense of the time that passed. With that, the worry about going to London as quickly as possible ebbed away as well.

Instead he floated without a feeling of stress on the edge of full consciousness as he was fed more and more by the woman who had taken him in. Only once his unnaturally drowsy state lessened did he come to see that she had been right to keep him safe, instead of immediately taking him to the edge of the forest. Every day he caught glimpses of the immense woodland that surrounded them, and he shuddered to think what it would have been like had he travelled through it immediately after waking up.

But staying here was not an option either. That was also a conviction that arose once he truly exited out of his weariness. But it was a slow, gradual process. He hardly remembered at first what he dreamt, which was one of the most important reasons why he felt so lost to the world in those days, weeks, perhaps even months: after all, he spent around half his time sleeping, and because those hours passed by uneventfully, there was little to remember from that time.

That was the key, he realised: remembering. Not only did he have no dreams to recall, the hours spent awake passed by without any unique events either. He woke up, ate far too much, endured Anoushka's touches, strokes, and, after a while, even kisses here and there, then sometimes he went outside to look at the gardens, and then he would go back to sleep until it was time to eat again. With so little to remember, as every day was exactly the same as the other, his recollections of that time were essentially a void. He had nothing to do during the day, either, and so he had little else to do than to console himself with his uneventful present and future, and instead look to the past to find an exit out of his inertia. Yet the recent past was uneventful, and the period before that, in Belfast, was not worth remembering either. He was in a circle, he realised, of nothingness. And time slipped through his fingers like the silky robe that he had to wear every day.

But dreams eventually came to bring a slight change in his life, and they came in the shape of terrifying nightmares. It was the forest that surrounded him, he knew, that triggered these recollections. Every night he dreamt of episodes that happened in the forest. Not only the Forbidden Forest, and the fateful days where he lured Teddy to the Resurrection Stone and in the process almost murdered one of his best friends, but gradually he also other experienced memories of other places. Strange memories he didn't recognise.

He dreamt that other people called him Julian, and that he was a merchant on the brink of bankruptcy and starvation. At night, in his – Julian's – rickety, worn-out bed, when the man closed his eyes, Harry travelled with him into his dreams. He dreamt of an episode from his past, where he went hunting on private grounds to try and find some meat and fur, just to get through the harsh winter. But then the other man, Thomas was his name, had shown him what he found. The Elder Wand. And Harry witnessed how that night, when Thomas was asleep, Julian got out of his sleeping bag, slit his friends' throat, and then took the wand from the dead man's grasp.

In another dream he was running through a different forest. His thoughts were in another language, German, he thought, and yet he understood them perfectly. Fear is a universal thing, the most primal emotion that transcends language. He stampeded through hilly woods, his back and neck tingled in an odd way that signalled that someone was behind him, watching him, chasing him; and then he suddenly reached a clearing. It was a wonderful place, with crystal-clear streams of water, neat flowerbeds, lawns and clumps of beautiful blooming trees, and in the centre stood a gorgeous mansion.

But then a man and a woman halted him, and after a brief conversation where Harry tried to give words to his indescribable fear of the _thing_ that was chasing after him, the man drew his wand and disarmed him. The Elder Wand sailed through the air, into the man's grasp. And there was a change in the scenery. He looked around himself and thought that the flowers, trees, and water didn't look as pristine anymore as they had done. It was as if there had descended a blue-ish hue over the surroundings. The curse had been passed on, he realised, and he ran back into the forest once more.

Those weren't the only nightmares. Every night and day he experienced different events, and they all involved strange forests and the Elder Wand. Strange people he'd never seen before – but knew their names of anyway – all quarrelled, fought, even murdered as the wand changed hands again and again and again. The language, attire, and surroundings changed, but the act was eerily similar every time. And sometimes there was a night where he dreamt that he was himself, and he remembered the panicked and disorientated escape through areas of the Forbidden Forest that no human had seen in ages, his mind not focused on his direction, but instead of the vivid memory of that clearing, Teddy, Ginny, Ron, and a shuddering, bleeding, dying Hermione.

All those scenes seemed to melt into one and other as the time went on. He didn't share them with Anoushka as first, as he didn't really tell her anything about himself anyway. As time went on, though, he began to trust her more and more, figuring that if she really did want to harm him, she would have done so when he was completely defenceless. But still there was a small nagging doubt in the back of his mind, undoubtedly caused by his previous experience with Damien. And so he gratefully ate what she made for him, and happily wore the clothes that she gave him, even though he didn't really have a choice in these matters.

"Anoushka?" he'd asked one day after eating the courgette soup she'd made for him. Anoushka, who had caught a rabbit in one of her grass-woven traps earlier, was in the process of hanging its pelt on one of the beams running along the roof. She paused her task and looked down at him.

"Could I have my old clothes back, please?"

"Ah, I was wondering when you would ask for those. One moment, please, and I'll just finish this off." She looked back up at the rabbit skin and tied the rope around what used to be its hind legs. Satisfied that it would stay there, she stepped down from the chair she'd been standing on. "I'll be right back." She straightened her dress and went through the door to her bedroom, which was right underneath his room, next to the stairs.

She reappeared a moment later with a few shapeless rags in her hand. She dumped those on the table, allowing Harry to inspect them. After a few moments, he had to conclude that these were his clothes.

"They're completely torn to shreds," he said, staring wide-eyed at Anoushka.

"You're lucky to be alive, Dudley," she said, her expression grave. To demonstrate that, she picked up his jacket and spread it wide, to show him the many tears and holes in it. "It was such a violent scene. Those weeds you were caught in are called Tantalus Root. They have little hairs on them that detect heat. Once they find that, they'll coil around that thing quickly, and hook itself onto it with their hollow thorns, sucking the life out of their pray through them. That's what caused all these tears in your clothes."

Harry slowly raised his hand to touch the jacket, feel the holes and the torn fabric of it.

"I didn't have any cuts on me, though," he said, looking back up at her. "When I woke up. I didn't see anything."

"Oh, sweetie, you did," she replied. She laid the jacket back down on the table, and approached him. "Open your robe, please."

Harry quickly took a step back, his face reddening. "But… I'm not wearing anything underneath," he protested.

"Oh, stop worrying about that," she said, shaking her head. "I've seen you plenty of times when you were unconscious. There's nothing to be ashamed of."

Harry took another step backwards, demonstratively grabbing the lapels of his robe to show her what he thought about that.

"It'll just be for a moment, just to show you what those roots did to you. You were curious about that just a minute ago, weren't you?" She took a step forward, closing down the space between them again.

"I was," Harry admitted. He sighed and hung his head. "Fine."

He moved the lapels he was still holding aside so that she had a full view of the front of him. He felt the air move past his skin, and when he lifted his head he saw that Anoushka was looking down at his exposed torso. He wanted to close the robe again, and he felt the skin in the area she was looking at crawl. But he swallowed and allowed her to take that last step to close the final distance between them.

"See here," she said slowly. She reached out her arm, extended a finger, and then touched the skin on his chest. He clenched his jaw and felt her warm touch through the chest hairs, as she traced her finger downward. "It's difficult to see with the hair you have here, but do you see that scar there? It's slightly bumpy there, and a bit whiter than the skin around it." She never took her eyes off it.

"It's kind of hard to see," Harry said.

"Oh, you've got more." She moved her hands to his left shoulder and grabbed the robe that hung over it. "May I?" she asked.

"Alright."

She pulled the fabric aside. Harry strained his neck to see his shoulder and the skin she was touching. "See, here it's easier to see. Do you see this line here?" she traced it lightly with her index finger, then placed her thumb on his skin as well, and she squeezed. "See? There's no blood flow here."

"Yeah, I see," he replied, his cheeks burning as he felt her breath on his skin.

"I healed it with a plant called dittany." She stroked his shoulder, and the red marks of where her fingers had pressed into his skin faded away again.

"I've heard of dittany," Harry said. He couldn't breathe in and out properly, tense as he was standing so close to the woman.

"You would have been in a much worse state if I didn't grow some here," she said. Her hand slipped tenderly down his arm, to his elbow, and she almost touched the strap where the Elder Wand was hidden from her sight. But she stopped her touch right before it.

"You're growing so much stronger now," she commented. Their eyes met, and Harry was startled with the warmth he saw in them, in the crinkles around them. His tension and apprehension slowly slipped away, and it was replaced by a different urge and Harry felt himself slowly slide into something he supposed should be called tranquillity. He couldn't place this feeling first, as he was still confused over his changing emotions in that fraction of a second. But then Anoushka took charge. Her gaze moved up as she leaned in even further to close the last bit of space between them, and she placed a soft kiss on his forehead. He felt two arms snake around him and pull him closer towards her. As her warm body pressed to his naked skin, he felt a deep warmth settle in his stomach, akin to the feeling of drinking Firewhiskey. As that warmth spread through his entire body, he breathed out softly, letting go of the last bit of tension in his body, and he put his arms around the woman as well, closing his eyes as he reciprocated her caring embrace.

"Thanks for taking care of me," he said, and this time he didn't say it out of politeness, but to give words to the deep feeling of gratitude he felt towards her.

"You're a sweet man, Dudley," she said, her smile audible. She placed another kiss on his head.

They separated, and she spoke up after Harry closed his robe again.

"One thing I did notice when I was washing these clothes, is this thing."

She grabbed something from underneath the pile of clothes on the table and showed it to him. It was his Invisibility Cloak, completely undamaged.

"What is this?" she asked. She extended her arm to him, and Harry took the cloak from her. "It feels very strange, almost like your robe, but even smoother and lighter."

"It's my Invisibility Cloak," he replied after a few moments of deliberation whether to tell her or not.

"An Invisibility Cloak?" she asked, her voice rising. "I've never seen one before. Could you show what it does to me?"

"Sure." He slung the silky fabric around him, which rubbed up strangely against his robe, so that his whole body, save his head, was covered.

"Incredible," Anoushka breathed. She reached out and grabbed what looked like thin air, but Harry felt the tug on the cloak, and he was visible once again. She met his eyes.

"I've heard of Invisibility Cloaks. Do you know the tale of the Peverell Brothers?"

"Oh yes," Harry replied. "I think every witch and wizard knows that."

"Is this… Is this the one from that story?" He noticed that her hands were shaking.

Harry looked down at his invisible body, then up again. "Oh," he laughed. "Oh no, definitely not. You can just buy these in the stores for a couple galleons."

"Oh, silly me," Anoushka said, still staring at his invisible body. She breathed out and chuckled. "You must think I'm an idiot for assuming that. It's just… The Tale of the Three Brothers is so fascinating, and to think that the Cloak, the Stone and the Wand might be out there somewhere is just so thrilling to me."

"Yeah, I know," Harry said, outwardly grinning, but at the same time hoping the conversation would be over soon.

"Especially the Wand is rumoured to give the wielder exceptional power, isn't it? And give them arcane knowledge they otherwise could only have dreamed of."

"That's what they say," Harry said, his grin faltering.

"The Stone, I don't really care for, personally. We all die eventually, and I don't see any point in denying that. But the Wand and the Cloak… I wouldn't say I'd kill for that, of course, but… I mean, look at your cloak! I'm absolutely amazed at how well it works," she remarked, her voice soft. "And it doesn't have a single tear in it either, not even after your encounter with the Tantalus Root! Imagine how incredible the actual Invisibility Cloak from that tale would be?"

"Yeah, it's amazing what they can do these days," Harry chuckled, inwardly impressed with himself for his ability to lie on the spot. "They've chucked every protective spell the know on it, it seems."

Anoushka never stopped staring at it, until finally he managed to take it from her grasp and store it safely in his closet.

Their relationship had changed after that day. He had been puzzled at first at his reaction to their embrace, and he didn't know how to place the warm feelings he had felt when she had pulled him close to her. It reminded him in a strange way of the hugs Molly Weasley gave him sometimes, but it wasn't quite the same as that. It was confusing, but either way, from then on he no longer felt so apprehensive around her. He still had to endure her overly affectionate ways of touching him as often as possible, but he no longer minded those as much. Sometimes he even relished in the attention she was doting on him as he slowly gained more weight and felt more fit.

He even started helping her with her crops. At first the fully-grown plants in the middle of the winter puzzled him, especially because they were simply out in the open, exposed to all elements. But Anoushka explained to him that their endurance in the winter was thanks to the soil.

"This house is built on a special place," she'd explained on his first day in the gardens. "There used to be an ancient oak tree here, the oldest in the entire forest. It was chopped down as a rite of renewal at the start of spring, and the wood was used to build the house. The soil here has never lost its… well… magic."

"Who chopped it down, then?" Harry had asked.

"I don't know," she had replied. "But I can tell you that it happened a very long time ago. And I think that's the reason why these plants grow so well, no matter what season it is. I think the rite of spring that occurred here so long ago has been successful."

"You can say that again," Harry had absently said, while stroking one of the leaves of a large tomato plant.

She had then proceeded to show him around the garden, which plants she grew in which sections. The vast majority of the space was reserved for food: carrots, beets, lettuce, as well as tomatoes, pepper and different kinds of fruit-bearing trees. She also had a section for plants that could be used for potions, and she took extra care to point out the dittany plant to him. At the other end of the house was a small chicken coop.

"I've placed some magical protections around it," Anoushka had explained to him. "There are plenty of creatures out there in the woods that would love to grab one of these chickens as a snack."

"Such as?" Harry had asked, staring at the dark boundary of the forest not a stone's throw away from them.

"Foxes, mainly," she'd replied. "Hinkypunks are also known to indulge in chickens when they can't find anything else to eat. I'm also fairly sure there's a few packs of Crups out there. Other than that, I don't know exactly what lives in these woods. I prefer not to stray too far. Even I can get lost, and I know this area better than anyone else."

All the while, Harry gained more weight and energy. He needed progressively less sleep, and after what felt like a month, he no longer needed to have a nap in the afternoon. With his changing physique, though, there was also an increase in Anoushka's desire to touch him. She stroked his arms and shoulders, ruffled his hair, and as time went on, her hands also wandered to his sides, belly, and even his hips. Harry didn't want to bring it up to her, reasoning that he would soon leave this place once again. He also didn't know how she would react to him objecting to her affectionate nature.

But as his physical condition improved, so did his conviction. More and more he thought about the conversation he and Lydia had overheard between Lord Castlereagh and Damien. Now that he was no longer in that strange trance, he wondered anxiously what had become of her. Awful scenarios ran through his head, along with the strange nightmares: visions of the Buckriders, not least Damien himself, taking revenge on her. And they mixed in with the nightmares of the Elder Wand that were already present. He woke up with a sheen of perspiration every morning.

He had go back to his own world, he realised, and now that he felt capable once more of walking through the forest to the nearest place where he could Floo to London, there were no more excuses. He could no longer run away from it. And once he got back there, he would also start searching for Lydia. He owed it to the woman who had taught him once again what it feels like to have hope for the future.

That yearning to return to the magical world intensified with the thought of the people he had left behind over a year ago. The more aware and awake he was, the more he missed them, even though he still dreaded what Ron and Hermione would do if they saw him again. Most of all, though, he missed Ginny. The sight of her, her touch, her scent, the way she looked at him with her bright brown eyes. And that thought of her, that place in his mind that was entirely devoted to her memory, was what finally pushed him to reject Anoushka's touch.

It was slowly getting to be spring, and some early buds could be seen on the trees when this occurred, and Harry and Anoushka were more often outside than inside, as they planted, harvested, and maintained the many plants growing around the house. Harry had been on his knees, using a small, dented, rusty spade to loosen the solid earth, so that there would be space for a new row of bean plants. With Harry staying here for an extended amount of time, Anouska explained that they needed more plants to keep up with the appetite of two people. He'd tried to apologise for this, but she had waved that away before he could start.

And while he was on his hands and knees, attacking the grassy soil, he suddenly felt a hand touch his bum, and then squeeze it.

As if stung by a bee, he had veered up and turned around to see Anoushka regard him with the same serene expression she usually had.

"Erm, Anoushka?" he had asked, placing his hand on the area where she had touched him. "Could you stop doing that, please?"

"Doing what? Touching you?" she had asked, furrowing her eyebrows.

"Yeah," he'd said. "It's, erm… I don't really like it."

Her expression had changed, and she'd looked so crestfallen that Harry almost felt the need to apologise to her.

"I'm sorry," she had said. She laid one hand on his shoulder, as she usually did, but then, realising what she had done, she hastily pulled back again. "It's just how I am. I didn't know you were uncomfortable with it. And I just… Well, you're really looking healthier and healthier now, and I wanted to show you that." She sighed and looked up to meet his eyes. "It won't happen again. I'm sorry."

She did keep her word. Truth be told, Harry had come to appreciate some of her touches with time, and he appreciated why she did it. But she took it too far, and he did lose a lot of anxiousness now that he didn't constantly have to worry anymore about wandering hands touching his body at any given moment.

And that was how the weeks and months leading up to spring passed. The buds on the trees now started to unfold, the birdsong in the dark forest changed slightly in tone and became louder, and Harry, after waking up in good spirits, knew that the time had come for him to leave.

* * *

That evening, as the charmed brush and dishcloth were doing the dishes for them, Harry and Anoushka were seated in front of the fire.

"Anoushka?" he began. He cleared his throat as averted her gaze from the dancing fire to look at him. "I think it's time for me to leave."

She didn't respond at first. Her shoulders drooped slightly, although the minimal change in her body language was nigh impossible to see, and she stared back at the fire. Then she breathed in and stood up from the comfortable sofa.

"You're right," she then said. She walked towards the shelves which were loaded with all kinds of bits and pieces. She'd explained to him that these were the things she'd found in the forest, and that she liked collecting them.

Harry spoke up again when she didn't. "I want to leave tomorrow."

Anoushka raised her eyebrows, and she grabbed the necklace with the odd stone, the same one that Harry had noticed on the first day he'd left his bed here. "I suppose that wouldn't be a problem," she said in a monotone voice. "But are you sure you don't want to stay just a bit longer?"

Harry was momentarily taken aback when she glanced back at him, and he saw the conflicting emotions in her expressive green eyes. He clenched his jaw and swallowed. "I'm sure," he said. "I've been here for a very long time, and I can't thank you enough for what you've done for me. But I can't stay. I don't belong here."

Anoushka stared back at the necklace, turning the stone it carried over in her hand. "I'll miss you," she then said. She shook her head. "But what am I thinking… of course you're right. You've got a life waiting for you out there, and you've been anxious to return to it since the day you've woken up." She breathed in deeply once again. "Alright," she said, her voice shaking a bit. "Tomorrow morning I'll take you to the edge of the forest. From then on, though, you'll have to find your own way. That's where my knowledge ends."

Harry stood up, not unaffected by her displayed emotions, and he approached her and pulled her into a hug.

"Thank you," he said once again. Her hunched posture meant that they were of equal height for once. "I'll never forget what you've done for me."

"It was my pleasure, all of it," she said. She squeezed him hard, and then they separated again.

He thought back to that moment when he lay in bed later that night, and as he recalled that image, he considered what exactly his feelings were towards the woman. Gratitude was the strongest feeling. That he knew for sure. A feeling of warmth filled his whole being when he thought back to how he'd ended up here, remembering that feeling of hopelessness as he sunk down deeper and deeper in that pool, and then the strong tug he'd felt just before he lost consciousness. With that, as well as the months after that she'd spent caring for him, the woman had single-handedly pulled him out of a very deep hole, figuratively, as well as literally. It was here that he finally discovered the toll the past year had had on him, how much the chronic lack of food and sleep had weighed on him, and how much he really missed a safe, warm bed to sleep in. Not only did it improve his physical condition, it also filled him with hope for the future. He had stumbled across this place purely by accident, so what's to say that he wasn't going to be this lucky more often in the coming time? There were still many uncertainties, and many hurdles to overcome, but he now believed once more that after rain, came sunshine. That hope made him feel human again, and he owed that to Anoushka.

His eyes drifted shut. He felt sleep overcome his senses, and welcomed it in peace.

Moments later, far too early for his liking, he was shaken to wakefulness again.


	14. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: abuse, violence, and brief sexual assault happens in this chapter.

Harry groaned, and mumbled something, forgetting a moment later what he'd said. He tried to crack his eyes open, but his eyelids wouldn't cooperate. That was when Anoushka's voice penetrated into his sleep-fogged brain, and he heard her say his name, or at least the name he'd given her.

"Wha?" he asked, lifting his heavy arms to rub his eyes.

"Wake up Dudley. I want to show you something special," she said, stroking his shoulder and arm. What finally broke through his groggy state, was that she narrowly missed the wand holster in her ministrations, and he finally cracked open his eyes. It was darker than usual. The moonlight, normally almost bright enough to make it seem like it was day, did not shine in through the window behind him. Instead, Anoushka's face was lit up by a bundle of blue flames she held in her hand. His eyes trailed drowsily from her face to the cleavage she exposed as she bent over him.

"There we are, finally awake," she said, and Harry thought she looked far too excited and energetic for such an ungodly hour. "Come on, grab your robe, and come downstairs. There's something I want you to see."

She straightened up again, and as she exited his room, she took the end of the fur blanket covering his naked body, and slowly dragged it off him.

The shock of cold air and her gaze impacting his body drove the last tiredness away, and with a yelp, he jumped up, covering his crotch with both hands, but before he could reach out for his robe to cover up his body, she'd already left his room. He heard her cackling as she walked down the creaking stairs. Harry, intrigued by what caused her strangely energetic state, pulled on his robe and quickly followed her downstairs.

She was waiting for him there at the door opening outside. The cluttered living room looked almost alive in the dancing light of the ball of flames she held in her hand.

"Come outside," she said, beckoning him, "and see."

Harry approached her and walked past her through the door opening. It was cold outside, and even the light breeze was enough to chill him through his thin robe, and it was darker than usual. He could hardly see the edge of the forest. He did hear it, though: the wind rushing through young leaves and thin branches, some crickets here and there, and the occasional call from an owl.

Anoushka closed the door and approached him.

"It's the dark of the moon," she said as she stood beside him. "Look up."

Harry did as she told and gazed up at the sky. And he was greeted by the amazing sight of a vast, unending sea of stars. The sky was alight with their innumerable blinking colours. It was dizzying to behold it, and he found that it was difficult to single one star out in the incredible soup of colours and lights. He saw bands of the Milky Way, and planets and the movement of shooting stars. It was dizzying to behold such richness, an amount of stars that was so far beyond his comprehension that his head spun and his heart soared with profound wonderment at the vast and unending beauty of it all. He felt so small, so infinitesimally tiny at the grand Space that they were floating in, on a speck of dust, a pale blue dot. He imagined himself a worm crawling through the blades of grass, so blissfully unaware of the vast unending world around him. And with that awe thrumming inside him, his troubles, his sorrow, it all seemed so fleeting, unimportant.

"Wow," he said, his voice sounding strange as he strained his neck to take in the awesome sight.

"I couldn't sleep," Anoushka said softly, her voice barely exceeding the rustling of the trees. Harry didn't move his eyes from the sky. "And then I remembered that tonight was the new moon. Normally it's really bright, you know, so it blocks out most of the stars. But not tonight." Her voice quivered slightly.

"It's beautiful," Harry said, not knowing where exactly to look, as every single inch of night sky seemed alive with the many-coloured stars. "I've never seen anything like this. In the city you hardly see any stars."

"Really?" Anoushka asked. "I can't imagine something like that. That seems horrible."

"You don't really notice it," Harry explained. "That goes for a lot of things in the city. You kind of have to tune the stuff you miss out, otherwise you'd just go mad."

"Such as?"

"Well, erm… Like I said: the stars, for example. Also, how many people there are. The air is really bad as well, especially in London."

"Why would you ever want to go back there, then?" Anoushka asked. Her arm found his left shoulder once again.

"It's my life," Harry replied. He averted his gaze from the stars to smile at her. "I have family there, and friends. And that's really the most important thing to me."

"I understand," she said, returning his smile. "And I suppose that's why I want to stay here, and you don't. I don't have that pull that you have."

"I suppose not." Inwardly, he thought that even without the thought of Ginny and the others, he still would not choose to stay here.

They were silent in contemplation, and then looked up at the spectacle in the sky again.

"It's a new cycle," she commented.

"Yeah, it is. Kind of fitting, now that you mention it, that I'm leaving tomorrow."

"Yeah, it is fitting," she said. The forest breathed in and out as a stronger breeze rushed through the many trees. "That's how it goes, though. We move in circles, as we transition from one cycle to the next. We change, grow up with and at the cost of other living beings. A boy slowly becomes a man, and a sapling grows into a mighty oak. And that repeats itself over and over. That's the rhythm of nature that we will always live in."

Harry hummed in agreement of her drowsy monologue.

"And to be part of that, means that we have to eat."

Harry hummed again, feeling his eyelids start to droop, and he yawned, completely unaware of what was about to happen to him.

He heard the rustling of leaves next to him, then something that swung through the air, and something impacted his head.

Before he knew what was happening to him, he fell to the cold, wet ground, seeing his world spin, and tumble sideways. For a moment he laid there, wondering what on earth had happened, and how he had ended up in this position.

Then he tried to push himself back on his feet, but he was dizzy, and his arms seemed to still be asleep.

"I've got you," he heard Anoushka say, her voice sounding oddly distant. A foot then appeared in his spinning, blurred field of vision, and he felt two hands snake under him and lift him up. And before he knew what was happening, the witch was carrying him inside as if he weighed nothing.

He shook his head and looked up at her. Her face still bore that strange excitement that it had just a minute ago.

"What's going on?" he asked. They passed through the door opening, and behind them he saw the door close again on its own.

Harry tried to move his arms and legs, twist his body to break free from her grasp, but he couldn't move.

"Shh, be quiet," Anoushka said, narrowing his eyes at him. She then gently placed him down. Harry looked to his left, then to his right, and concluded that he was laying on the dinner table.

"What's going on?" he asked, his voice rising. He sat up straight, but she was prepared for that, and pushed him back down, his head impacting the hard wood, and again he felt dizzy.

"Lay still now," she said calmly, and something snaked around his wrists and ankles. He looked down, and saw leather straps binding his limbs tightly to the table. He pulled up, and tried to wrench himself from the bindings, but they were too tight, and he could hardly move.

"Anoushka," he breathed. His heart beat faster and faster, and blood rushed in his ears. "Anoushka, please, what's the point of this?"

But she didn't reply. A fire began burning in the hearth, suddenly illuminating the entire room in a dark red, moving light. Harry looked to his right and saw her bent over the kitchen counter.

"Anoushka…"

No reply. And then began a repeated, sharp grinding noise that he knew came from her sharpening the knives with a grindstone.

She even started humming as she busied behind the counter, with her back turned towards him. She stood perfectly still yet appeared to be swaying gently in the dancing light of the flames.

Harry finally looked away from her tall, broad form, and regarded the bindings that held him in place. They were sturdy and thick, and seemed to come up through the thick wooden surface of the table. It was hopeless.

Anoushka then slowly turned around to face him. She held one of her knives in her hand, the one that was so big that it was somewhere between a butcher's knife and a blade.

She smiled, and that unsettled him even further.

"This is all meant to happen," she then said, her voice sounding heavier than it normally did. "From the moment you laid there in my bed, your body almost torn to shreds, I knew that you were a gift that had fallen into my lap. And so I nursed you, I healed you back to your normal self."

She paused the monotone, repetitive grinding, and placed the grindstone on the counter. She approached him, knife in her hand. His breathing quickened and he tugged fearfully on the binds.

She stood next to him and grabbed the lapel of his robe in one hand. Then she pulled, hard, and it was separated from him somehow, even from his bound arms. He was left then, completely nude and spread out on the dinner table, the sheen of sweat on his skin reflected in the moving light. His life felt so small just now, merely a spark in the unending grandeur of Space. And now that spark was about to go out.

"Sapling into oak," she murmured. Her hand crept down past his neck, and she began caressing him. She began there, at his chest, and then travelled all over his body, with no particular direction. "Boy into man." Her hand slid down his belly, his breathing came out in small, shocked gasps, and then she found his crotch. She toyed with it for a moment, and to Harry's intense mortification, he felt himself getting erect as she stared at it with intense fascination.

"Please, no," he whimpered. "Not that."

She tore her gaze from it, and grinned at him, baring her teeth. "Not what?" she asked. Her hand then finally moved away from his penis and trailed down his thigh. "I'm not going to do that, sweetie," she said, gazing again to where her hand crawled over his skin. "If I wanted to have children with you, I would have done so a long time ago. But I don't need children here."

Harry felt bile rise up in his throat.

"You've become so strong," she breathed as she squeezed his upper leg. "So strong indeed. And now the time has come for me to take it for myself." She met his eyes, and her gaze seemed to glow in the dim light of the fire. "To grow, we have to take from others. And you…" she raked her manic eyes over his body. "You will do just fine."

She removed her hand from his body and walked around the table. Harry tried to follow her movement as best he could, from his bound position. She stopped, and leaned over, placing her left hand flat on his chest. Her eyes met his once again.

"It will be quick and painless, honey," she said. She stroked his forehead lightly with her right hand, and Harry saw the sharp edge of the knife up close. "You'll just have to be strong for me for one last moment, and then it'll all be over."

Harry looked at her, but in his mind he saw Ginny. Not as she had been on that evening in the Forbidden Forest, but on the day where they and Teddy had gone to the beach on that magical summer day. How she'd run around on the beach, chased after him in the water, and then laid her head contently on his chest as they lazily floated in the sea. Whereas his sorrows had seemed so small at the sight of the heavens just now, the love he felt for Ginny, and Ron, and Hermione, and all the family and friends he'd made over the years, burned brighter than ever before. A tear pooled up in his eye, and slid down the side of his face, bringing him back to the dark night he was in.

"I don't want to die," he whispered to her. And as those words left him, so did the numbing, paralysing panic that had until now had an iron grip on him and his mind. Perhaps it was his common sense finally breaking through that caused a burst of clarity so sudden and unexpected that his mind didn't have time to object to using the wretched thing that had done so much harm to him. But as he looked the witch in the eye, he flicked his left wrist. The Elder Wand seemed to appear from thin air, and it shot into his open hand.

Anoushka saw the movement in her peripheral vision and looked down. Her eyes widened, and she jumped back as she gasped in shock.

"No," she said as she stumbled backwards. "That Wand, I recognise that Wand…"

"Oh you do, do you?" Harry snarled. He had to find a way to cut himself loose from these binds.

"I could feel that thing on you all this time, you bastard, but I could never see or touch it!" she cried, pointing at the wand with a shaking finger. Harry, meanwhile, spun the wand in his hand so that it was aiming back at the leather strap that bound his wrist to the table.

" _Diffindo!"_ he called, and the strap slid in two. "Stay back," he warned, aiming the wand at Anoushka, who cowered further and further away from him.

"Don't you point that cursed thing at me!" she cried. "I can feel the darkness of it in my soul!"

"Stay there, then! And don't try anything funny, or I will use this wand on you!"

"Are you barking mad?! You're free to go, Harry! Just go away and take that damned wand with you!" She let go of the butcher's knife, and it clattered loudly to the floor.

"I'm going to cut myself loose now, so you'd better keep yourself to that," he said. He then quickly turned his back to her to cut the strap on his right hand, and then immediately spun around again, in case she tried to attack him from behind. But she didn't. She fell back slowly, and sat down on the floor, her back hunched and her head hung in defeat.

"Was this the only reason why you saved me?" he asked while freeing his feet as well.

"No," she moaned. "I was chasing that Hinkypunk to try and kill it, because they're a pest here, and then I saw it had lured someone in that pool, so I just… saved whatever was in there. It was only back at home, when I cleaned you and tucked you in that I…"

"That you saw a tasty snack in me?" Harry growled. He stood up from the table and stretched and turned his aching wrists.

She sobbed in reply and buried her head in her hands. He regarded her with contempt as he grabbed his discarded robe off from the floor and pulled it on. He then summoned his Invisibility Cloak from the next room, and it floated gracefully into his arms. He faintly felt the oily blackness of the Elder Wand's magic coursing through him, but the fear and adrenaline of what had almost happened to him pushed that nauseating feeling to the back of his mind.

"I'm leaving," he announced. He froze when he laid his hand on the doorknob and looked back once more at the woman who had, for whatever twisted reason, saved him from certain death. She still sat crumpled down on the floor, her tall, broad body shaking as she cried.

His lips tightened, and he stepped outside.

 _Where to, now?_ He thought, peering at the dark edge of the forest. Nothing out here had changed. It was still as peaceful outside as it had been before. He couldn't Apparate to safety without knowing where exactly he was. Seeing no better option, Harry decided to simply walk straight forward, and hope for the best.

When he passed the first line of trees, he breathed out, and felt his posture relax a bit as he smelled the earthy smell of the forest, and he let the sounds around him wash over him: the crickets, the owl, the rolling leaves, the wind rushing through the bald branches… He paused to look at the Elder Wand. As it lay in the palm of his hand, it looked innocent enough. But the wood felt cold and heavy, unnaturally so, and the feeling of the knobbly elder wood on his skin brought his mind back to dark, haunted memories. He sighed, and pressed the wand back into his holster, hoping that he would never have to use it again.

 _Once I'm back in London, I'm buying a new wand_ , he vowed.

And then he heard a distinct _crack!_ behind him. His heart skipped a beat, and the entire forest suddenly seemed deathly silent. He spun around, and saw a dark silhouette rushing towards him.

Anoushka screeched as she leapt towards him with an unnatural speed. She crashed into him, knocking them both to the floor. Harry was pinned down, and he couldn't twist his wrist to call forth the Elder Wand.

"Give me that Wand!" she screamed in his ear. She clawed at his left arm, scratching his skin as they struggled in absolute darkness on the forest floor. She got a hold over the invisible holster, pressed his forearm down on the ground, against a root, and with her other hand she tore the holster off. A shout escaped his throat as pain shot through him.

"I've got you know," the woman said with rasping breath. She shifted her position and sat down on his belly, still pinning down his arms. "No more tricks up your sleeve now, sweetie. You're mine!"

"You can Apparate," Harry said, looking up at her dishevelled outline with wide eyes.

"Of course I can! Ha-ha!" she threw her head back and cackled madly at the branches and the starry sky. "Did you really think a powerful witch like me doesn't know how to Apparate? You silly boy!"

She placed her hands on his chest and pushed herself up off him. Yet when Harry tried to move, he found that he was unable to. Whatever spell she must have cast on him, it left him immobilised. His muscles wouldn't cooperate, and his arms and legs felt like they were made of lead. He was defenceless and unable to do anything as Anoushka bent down, grabbed his ankle, and slowly began dragging him back towards that cursed house.

"No," he whimpered, feebly trying to claw at the earth. Dirt gathered under his fingernails, but it was no use. They passed the treeline again, and then he heard her open the door behind him.

"I am going to eat you," she growled. Madness had taken over. Or perhaps it had always been there, hidden underneath a mothering veneer. "I am going to tear your ribs apart and consume your heart." She dragged him past the rows of vegetable plants. "I am going to cook your innards, drink your blood, and suck the marrow from your bones." Past the herbs. Grass tickled his skin. "Just like I have done to all the others who came before you. I consumed them, and grew strong from the life that flowed from their decapitated corpses. All that I have given you, all my love, all my food; it is mine to take now."

The door flew open with a _bang!_ that made him shiver to his core.

"We're home!" she sang, dragging him over the doorstep, into the suppressive heat of the living room. She dragged him further to the middle of the room and left him there in a useless heap.

"Let's see…" she said. She waved her hand and the front door closed again, then she turned back to him. She had transformed in this short time. Her brown hair, which had always been fairly uncontrolled, now stood out at every end, and it was full of leaves, branches, and specks of dirt. Her dress was equally smeared and dirty, and her face bore a predatory look as she regarded him with bared teeth. "You've destroyed my straps, but no matter. In that pitiful state you're in, I can just do it like this." She marched over, bent down, and scooped him up off the floor as if he weighed nothing, and she deposited him on the dinner table again.

"And now…" she turned her back to him and grabbed the knife from the floor. It still lay there where she had dropped it before. She turned back to him, and this time there was no more preamble. She marched towards him and placed her left hand on his chest. She pressed the knife to his throat, to measure the swing, and then raised her arm up high, ready to bring it down again and slice his head off…

But the spell that Anoushka had cast on her victim didn't hold. By nursing him back to health, feeding him, strengthening his body and mind, she had brought about her own downfall. Because as Harry stared up at his certain death, his newfound hope and desire to live took hold over his paralysed body, and white-hot energy burned through her immobilising magic. He rolled to the side and tumbled to the floor just as the butcher's knife swung down. It wedged itself in the table. Anoushka screamed, just as Harry gathered himself to his feet again. Before she could pry loose the knife, he charged at her, knocking her back across the room. He closed his hands around her throat and squeezed hard. Their eyes met, and he saw the shock in her eyes. He squeezed harder, but she was powerful and taller than him, and she brought her strong arms down on his head, once, twice, with repeated blows she punched him again and again. She then took advantage of his dizzy state and broke his grip on her throat.

They both panted, pausing their fighting for a fraction of a second. Then Anoushka put her hands on his chest and shoved him back towards the dinner table. He crashed against it, and the chairs clattered loudly to the floor.

"You think you could simply choke me to death, you pathetic man?!" she cried, marching up to him. She closed her hands around his throat, squeezing his airpipe shut. "Let's see how you like it yourself, then!"

Harry gasped, swallowed, but neither did anything. He yelped, but no sound escaped his throat. Shock had disappeared completely from her expression, and her bared teeth and eyes that shone with rage showed only animalistic determination to kill and eat.

She pushed him back, and his arms instinctively sought support on the table. That was when his left hand touched the hilt of the knife that was wedged in the table.

He regarded her unchanging expression, and at that moment he knew how it would end. He closed his fingers around the handle and yanked it loose. And swung the knife through the air. Anoushka never even saw it coming.

It sunk grotesquely into her neck and embedded itself diagonally. Blood welled up and then flowed, poured, spurted out from the wound. Her hands finally let go of his wrist, and he let go of the butcher's knife. It stayed on its spot inside her. She stumbled back, her expression surprised. Her mouth opened, but only a strange, gurgling noise escaped from her as blood welled up from her throat and began to flow out through her mouth.

Anoushka toppled backward and fell to the floor.

Minutes, perhaps even hours passed as Harry remained rooted on the spot, watching the witch lie there, watching the pool of blood form and expand around her.

It was over. She was dead. He could finally leave now.

His mind was strangely numb. He silently put himself in motion again, and he grabbed his wand holster, containing the Elder Wand, from the kitchen counter. He strapped it to his left arm again, but it didn't turn invisible again. He had to renew the spell. But he remembered the icy feeling of the wand laying in his grasp, and he couldn't bring it upon himself to experience those feelings again, let alone actually use the dreaded wand.

He then went over the shelves and cupboards to see if he could take something useful with him. He found a bowl of cherries, and decided to take it, hoping that it would be enough to last him through his trip out of this forest. While he busied around the room, the witch still laid there in the centre of it. His feet grew wet as he accidentally stepped in the layer of blood that pooled around on the floor, but in his shocked state, he couldn't bring himself to care about it. He looked around one last time and found nothing else he could do here. He went upstairs one last time to grab his Invisibility Cloak, and then he left the house, not sparing it even one last look.

* * *

His journey through the forest was rushed, panicked, and all the while dazed. It was coming towards the end of the night, and the sky turned from black to grey. Dew appeared on the branches and bushes he passed, and his nose was cleared as he breathed in the crisp morning air. Birds began to sing. It sounded so peaceful, and he wondered how something so beautiful could ever live in this cursed forest. He paused once near a stream to eat some berries that grew there and drink from the creek, but other than that he simply walked on in as straight a line as he could manage, hoping that he would reach the edge of the forest sooner rather than later.

The chaotic flight through the dark woods brought him back to what had happened a year and a half earlier. There were far too many similarities: his numb state of mind, the numerous flashbacks he experienced to the violent scene he was running away from…

_Is there no end to this?_

The thought rose up and took hold over him as he passed tree after tree after tree. It was all the same. He was moving in circles, and there was no end in sight for him.

 _But you can go back to London now_.

He knew this was true, deep inside. But his feelings told him the opposite, and it was hard to truly believe that he was nearing the end of his wanderings. As long as this monotone forest stretched on, he could not believe it.

The sun rose further and further in the sky, chasing the morning fog and dew away. Harry's body, which had become numb from the cold, finally started to heat up a little. But still there was no end to this forest. He was getting quite hungry, and he'd run out of berries a while back, as well as the cherries he'd taken from Anoushka's house. He looked around as he walked, but there were no fruits to be seen. It was far too early in the year for that. He wished that he'd paid more attention when Anoushka had explained all the sources of food that she used in the forest. But then his thoughts wandered to what had transpired last night, and as he did so, he felt in his mind her touch on his skin once more. How her hands had crawled over every inch of his body. Gooseflesh spread over his body, rubbing against the silky robe, and he noticed then that the sickening memory had chased most of his hunger away.

He walked on. Eventually, though a good while after the sun had reached its highest point in the sky, the gently rolling elevation made way for a steep hill. A spark of recognition shot through him, as he remembered how he'd stumbled downhill when he'd chased after the hinkypunk all those months ago. He quickened his tempo as excitement spread through him, invigorating him. And then he heard it: the rushing of a car over a road. His heart skipped a beat in joy, and he ran the last few yards up, until he finally saw the blissful, liberating sight of a road cutting through the forest.

He panted from the exertion and sunk to his knees on the earth next to the road, relieved laughter escaping from his throat.

"Thank you," he murmured. In his excitement, he slapped the moist asphalt, and then rose to his feet again. "Thank you!" he bellowed towards the sky. A few crows sitting nearby flew up from their branches, crying indignantly.

Harry followed their flight, his grin never once faltering, but then looked away from them when he heard a car approaching in the distance, from the direction of the village. He narrowed his eyes to see what it was, and his jubilant mood only increased, if that were possible, when it got closer and turned out to be a police car.

And Harry knew then, that it was over. He spread his arms and waved at them to get their attention. They slowed down, and parked their car next to the road, a considerable distance away from him.

Two policemen in uniform stepped out. One murmured something into the walkie-talkie on his shoulder, and they approached Harry, who was walking towards them as well.

But Harry, in his reckless joy, didn't consider the impression that his appearance made on the two policemen.

* * *

It was entirely coincidental that it was Smith and Richards who were on their regular patrol through the county that day. They had never stopped thinking about the case of the missing girl named Mary. They hadn't found her, and the investigation had run into a dead end as well. It was generally assumed, though, that she had gone into the strange forest next to the village on the day that she disappeared.

"We'll find her," Richards confidently said as they drove through the village where she'd lived. "We owe it to her parents, and also the village, I suppose. Those poor people are scared to death of the forest."

"I hope we can," Smith sighed, shaking his head. "I really hope we can."

"Hang on," Richards then said, pointing in the distance. "What's that up there? Do you see that?"

Smith leaned forwards and peered through the wind screen at where his colleague pointed at.

"Is that a man?" he asked.

"Looks like it. Oh look, he's jumping and waving."

"I'll stop the car. Let's see what this is all about."

"Good call."

They stopped and stepped out. Richards quickly mumbled something into his walkie-talkie, and they then slowly approached the strange man.

Because everything about him was strange: his long, dishevelled hair and beard, the strange robe he was wearing, his bare feet, and his seemingly manic state.

"Smith, Stop," Richards whispered to his colleague. "Look on his clothes. Look at the stains."

"Dear God, is that blood?"

"Thank God!" the strange man yelled, walking towards them with considerable speed. "I'm terribly sorry for stopping you, but I'm lost, and I don't have a phone."

"It's the same homeless looking bloke we've mentioned earlier," Smith murmured.

"You're joking," Richards remarked. "Christ, he's absolutely caked in blood!"

"I don't trust this one bit."

"Bring him in?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, son? What are you doing here?" Richards called. They almost reached the man by now.

"It's a long story," the man said. His gaze fitted between the two officers, and they saw how his joyous expression faltered.

"I can explain it," he said, coming to a halt. "I'm a copper too, you know?"

"Oh, are you?" Richard asked. "Who are you, then, and where are you from? We don't recognise you."

"Oh, the name's Dudley. Dudley Dursley. And I'm from London."

"The absolute state of the London Police," Smith whispered to his colleague.

"And how did you end up here, then?" Richards asked.

"Again, long story." The man grinned, but more out of nervousness than amusement.

"You might want to explain to us how you've ended up with blood all over you," Smith said.

"Blood…" the man repeated. He glanced down at himself, and gasped, his hands flying up to touch the innumerable stains and drops on his robe and skin. He looked up again, and they saw the panic in his eyes. Richards reached for his handcuffs. "Look," the man said, raising his hands in a placating manner. "This is not what it seems. Mate, I've just been through the worst nightmare you could imagine in there."

"I can imagine," Smith remarked dryly, while his colleague steadily approached the man. "But you'll have to explain it to us at the station. Richards?"

The man's eyes widened as he glanced at the two policemen, but then he sighed. "If you must…" he said, hanging his head.

"Good man," Richards said. He grabbed the man's extended hand and pulled them behind his back. "You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."

"Never thought I'd hear that used against me," the man mumbled as they walked back to the police car.


	15. Chapter 14

Harry was silent on the way to the police station. Villages, patches of forest, and crop field after crop field passed by in the pale spring sun as they drove on. And as he stared out through the bars in the back of the police car, a feeling of terrible injustice came upon him. He'd been so, so close to home, yet now it looked farther away than ever before. He had no identification, no money, no clothes apart from Anoushka's robe, and the feeling of that garment sticking to his perspiring body made him feel sticky, as if her creeping touch still lingered on his naked skin.

The two policemen, one red-haired, the other half bald and grey, had also taken his wand holster off, but apart from a few odd looks, they didn't inquire any further into the thing. But one question that remained in Harry's mind; why the officers were so quick to arrest him?

"Excuse me," he said. He leaned forward and allowed his hands, which were cuffed behind his back, a bit more room. "If I may ask, why did you decide to arrest me before asking me any questions?"

"We'll talk more about that when we're at the police station, son," the one who was not driving replied.

Harry nodded, and leaned back again after adjusting his hands, resuming his solitary considerations. He wanted to shout, definitely. He wanted to scream at them, tell them what he had just been through. But he reined himself in. He knew from his Auror days how useless it was.

They arrived a while later at a small police station at the edge of one of the villages. They parked in front of the building, which looked quite old, and he was ushered inside, to the reception area.

"We've found him in the woods near where that girl disappeared," the red-haired officer explained to the woman sitting behind the desk. Her eyes widened when she took in his appearance.

"I… see," she said, tearing her eyes from him with great difficulty. "What's his name?"

"Dudley Dursley."

She typed that into her computer.

"And where is he from?"

"He has no identification, but he says he's from London."

She typed that in as well.

"Address?"

"He won't say."

" _Can't_ say," Harry corrected him, standing a few feet away from them. Even though they would never understand that it was because of a Fidelius Charm, he still felt it necessary to tell them the truth.

"Of course," the receptionist said without missing a beat. "Occupation?"

"Police officer," the red-haired officer said.

She paused to glance at him, then continued her work, muttering something about London and things going downhill.

"He had this to declare," he continued, placing the wand holster, containing the Elder Wand, on the table in front of her. Harry chose to sit down on one of the chairs against the wall. The balding officer sat down next to him.

"Ah. Anything else?"

"This strange robe," the red-haired officer said, laying the Invisibility Cloak next to the wand holster. "Strange fabric, innit?"

"Silky," she commented, delicately running a free hand over it.

"That was all."

"Is he wearing anything else apart from that… robe?" she asked.

"No," Harry replied from his seated position.

"Would you like some spare clothes?" the standing officer asked.

Harry stared at him for a moment, his ears reddening. "What do you thin-" he began, but he broke off, biting his tongue to swallow a sarcastic reply. "Yes…" he eventually continued. "That would be nice, thank you."

"Cathy?" he asked, turning back to the receptionist. She nodded and disappeared into the room behind her.

"When she returns with the clothes, we'll take you to your cell while we prepare the interrogation," the red-haired officer said.

"How long will that take?"

"That depends on you, son," he replied.

"Oh." Harry hung his head, feeling a dreadful feeling grow in his stomach.

* * *

A short while later, after washing up and getting changed into the underwear, jeans and t-shirt the officers had given him, he was seated in a small office, behind a small white desk. The two officers, who had introduced themselves as Richards and Smith, sat on the other side of the bureau. On the surface stood an old computer, a few piles of paper, post-it notes, pens, and three cups of tea. Harry's hands were still cuffed, but now at least his hands were in front of him.

"Right," Richards, the one typing, said. "Let's start from the beginning. Name?"

"Dudley Dursley," Harry said in a monotone voice.

The two officers shifted in their chairs.

"Okay, _"Dudley"_ ," Richards said, looking away from the screen to make eye contact with him. "There's only one Dudley Dursley in this country, and he died in a car crash three years ago."

Harry froze, staring into Richards' watery blue eyes as his mouth fell open in shock.

"What?" he asked dumbly when he finally regained his speech.

"You didn't know that?" Smith asked.

"No," Harry replied, glancing at him, then at his cuffed hands. "No, I didn't know that." He'd never even gotten a card or a phone call concerning it. Sadness rose up in him, his heart grew heavy as the implication set in that his cousin, who had bullied him for so long, but who had also tried to reconcile things towards the end of his stay at the Dursleys, was now dead. Gone. And no one thought it necessary to invite him to the funeral, or even inform him.

"I can see that this is quite a shock for you," Richards said. "But I'd like your real name now. No more lying. We'll know straight away." He tapped the top of his computer monitor.

Harry swallowed the wave of mixed feelings for now as he considered what to tell them. Telling his real name now would certainly set off alarm bells at many institutions throughout the country once the file would be placed in the online archive. He knew that, because he and Kingsley had been the ones to implement such a close, but covert cooperation between the Magical and Muggle law enforcement.

But, as he regarded the two officers, who looked rather patient with him for now, he knew that he had no other choice. His wand and Cloak were at the reception area. He had nothing.

He sighed.

"Harry Potter."

"Thank you." Richards typed the name. "Harry James Potter, born thirty-first of July, 1981, in Godric's Hollow?"

"Yes."

The gazes of the two officers fitted between him and the screen.

"Son," Richards began, closing his eyes and taking off his small glasses. "I'd like you to stop lying now…"

"No, wait," Smith interjected, pointing at the screen. "I can see the similarities. Look, hair colour is the same."

"He's got brown hair, though. Well, half brown, and he has grey patches here and there."

"It's dyed," Harry supplied, refusing to lift his gaze to meet their eyes. "And I'm getting older."

"And the beard makes it harder to recognise him, but the face shape is the same," Smith continued.

"And the eyes?" Richards asked.

"Coloured contacts," Harry mumbled. "I could take them off to prove it to you, but then I wouldn't be able to see a thing."

Richards stared at him for a long time, with one eyebrow raised, his scepticism obvious to see.

"Will this suffice?" Harry asked, parting his long hair to reveal his lightning bolt-shaped scar.

Richards' left eyebrow joined his right in its high position on his forehead.

"Yes, I think that will do, thank you," Smith said feebly. "Can you explain to us the reason behind all those disguises?" he then asked. "You've obviously done your best to make yourself as unrecognisable as possible."

"I have," Harry said. He then considered the man's question, but he knew soon enough that he could only reply one thing. "And no, I can't."

"Why not?" Smith pressed as Richards typed it into the computer.

Harry shrugged and averted his gaze, staring at the slightly yellow plastered wall while silence reigned in the room.

"Alright, then, no reply," Smith eventually said. "Next question, then. Can you explain to us what you were doing in the forest today?"

"I was running away," Harry replied, looking back down at his wrists. He noticed there were still a few specks of dirt and blood on them. He'd missed those during his quick shower.

"Running away from what?"

"Anoushka."

"Anoushka? Who is Anoushka?"

"She lives in the forest," Harry explained. He knew that it would be fruitless to explain this to them, but he had little other choice than to tell them the truth. "In a small wooden house, in the middle of a clearing."

The two officers exchanged a glance.

"I've never heard of her, nor of anyone living in a forest in that area," Smith said.

"Me neither," Richards replied.

As one, they turned back to Harry expectantly.

"And, erm… Why were you running away from her, exactly?" Smith pressed, when Harry's reply was not forthcoming.

Harry clenched his jaw before replying: "Because she tried to eat me."

Richard's typing hands froze over the keyboard, and Smith's eyes widened.

"Tried to eat you?" Richards asked with a small voice.

"I'm speaking the truth here," Harry said. He met the man's blue eyes. "You can write that down. I'm not lying."

Smith sighed audibly and stood up. He turned to his right and grabbed something from the shelf packed with books and files that hung on the wall there. He sat down and unfolded it, revealing a map of the county. Richards helpfully cleared out the central area of the desk to make room.

"Right," Smith said, still standing up. "The village is here." He pointed at a small hamlet. His finger then traced a road for a while. "And this is where we found you. Look at that forest, and tell me where exactly this Anoushka lives."

Harry stared at the area where Smith was pointing at. There was a small green triangle of woods, but surrounding it, according to the map, were many crop fields, only occasionally interrupted by small patches of woodland.

"I couldn't tell you," Harry said.

"I thought not," Smith said shortly, folding up the map again.

"Smith…" Richards began.

But it looked like Smith's patience had run out. "Mr Potter," he said, pushing the folded-up map aside with abrupt force. "I sincerely hope that you're done telling us lies, now. If you're not willing to cooperate with us, then I'd be happy to throw you back into that jail cell and leave you there for the night."

"But Smith," Richards interrupted him, placing an arm on his shoulder. "Look, he does have bruises on his neck. Hand-shaped ones. His face is all blue as well, and he has strange marks on his wrists."

Smith's angry expression did not diminish. Richards turned to Harry. "Mr Potter, can you explain those injuries to us?"

"Certainly," Harry said, his ire growing as he watched Smith's sulking expression. "The marks on my wrists and ankles are from the straps she used to bind me to a table. I was able to escape momentarily, but she caught up with me, and dragged me back inside. There, we struggled, which is where the marks on my neck come from."

"And then?" Richards pressed.

"Well, she had this big knife," Harry said. "She had overpowered me, and tried to kill me with it, but she missed. So I took the knife from her, and as she was choking me, right as I felt myself grow feeble from the lack of oxygen, I swung it at her throat and killed her. That's where all the blood came from."

"You killed someone?" Smith asked.

"Yes, I did. Out of self-defence, mind you. Like I said, I was about to be choked to death and then chopped up into edible pieces." _If only they had a Pensieve_ , he thought in frustration.

"Right then," Smith muttered.

"Thank you for telling us this… information. We'll be running DNA samples to analyse the blood on your robe," Richards said, typing rapidly as Harry spoke. "What happened then?"

"Then I gathered my stuff–"

"Just like that?" Smith asked.

"Well, yes. I can't really remember how it all went down after… it happened." He sighed and turned his gaze towards the white ceiling. "I was in shock, I think. So I just did what I had to do on automatic pilot."

"And you didn't think it wise to call the police?" Smith pressed.

"I couldn't. Anoushka didn't have any cell phones, and neither did I."

"Because it was in the middle of the forest?" Smith asked, his tone making it very clear that he wasn't taking Harry's story seriously.

"Exactly," Harry nonetheless replied.

"You were talking about your "stuff"", Richards interjected before Smith could speak up again. "Those were the things we handed to the receptionist earlier?"

"Just those two things, yeah. And then I ran away. That was this morning. Well, towards the end of the night, I suppose. I kept walking until I reached the road and met you two."

Richards hummed and nodded and typed the last few words.

"Why did you run all day, until you reached that road specifically?" Smith asked. The tone of his voice was disbelieving, and he'd crossed his arms somewhere during Harry's explanation.

"Well, the forest was rather large," Harry explained. "That road was the first thing I encountered that was not a tree or a bush."

Smith slammed his hand on the folded-up map. Some tea spilled over the edge of the cups. "Did you not just see the map?!" he bellowed, standing up and bending over towards Harry. "Do you think it lies? There is nothing out there that could house such a place that you describe!"

"Smith, mate," Richard muttered, placing a restraining hand on his chest and gently urging him back in his chair.

Smith's jaw clenched, and he breathed in and out slowly. "You've done your say now, so let me run an alternative scenario for you," he said, his voice more even. He took a photograph from his breast pocket and slid it towards Harry.

Harry bent over to look closer. He saw a young woman, with brown hair, bright brown eyes and a slightly dark tinted skin.

"Do you recognise her?" Smith asked.

"No, I don't," Harry said.

"Her name is Mary Williams," the officer explained. "Local village girl, grew up there, was about to go to university last summer, when she suddenly disappeared without a trace. In the weeks after she disappeared, you passed through that village and disappeared as well. Half a year later, you suddenly show up again, covered in blood, wearing nothing but a robe and looking like you've been living as a hermit all that time. You then proceed to give us a false name, you refuse to tell your address–"

"I _can't_ give you that," Harry emphasised.

"Do not interrupt me again," Smith warned. "You give us false identification, tell us a fantastical story about a woman, who we have never heard of before, who has apparently been living in the forest, who is apparently a cannibal, and who you've killed in a desperate struggle to survival?" His voice had raised in volume during his summary, and now he paused to take a breath. "In all my years, I've learnt to believe in the truth, Mr Potter. The truth! Not the fairy tales, cover-ups, excuses and whatever else we get to enjoy when we talk to folk like you!"

He paused to take a big gulp of his tea, then wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his light-blue button-up shirt. "And I'll give you the truth! It says here that you used to be a detective, but that you got fired from your job in London one and a half years ago. Since then there has been an arrest warrant out for unnamed excessive behaviour during your time in London." He turned from the monitor to Harry. "You're a wanted, fugitive criminal, Mr Potter, and I have enough reason to believe that it's you who is behind the disappearance of Mary Williams! I don't know why or how, but by God, I can assure you that I'll do my utmost best to find out!"

"I don't know her!" Harry protested, pointing at the picture. "I've never heard of a Mary Williams before you mentioned her!"

"You killed her, didn't you?" Smith continued, unbuttoning the top button of his shirt. "Your injuries were caused while she was fighting for her life, is it not?"

"Absolutely not!" Harry cried.

"We'll find out soon enough what the truth is, Mr Potter!" Smith declared, a sneer appearing on his face. "We'll have the blood on your robe traced soon enough, and then we'll know who's telling the truth here, won't we?"

"We will," Harry replied, meeting the man's hateful gaze unflinchingly.

Richards then leaned over to whisper something in his colleague's ear. Smith nodded and leaned back in his chair, his face like thunder, and his small brown eyes still regarding Harry intently. Harry sighed and glanced back down at the picture that lay on the desk in front of him. The girl named Mary grinned broadly at him. It was a professionally done photograph, and she looked positively radiant, from her joyous eyes, to her white teeth, to the strange pendant hanging around her neck…

It was as if lighting had struck inside Harry. He stiffened, and then bent over rapidly to look closer at the pendant. Right underneath her collar hung a strange rock, attached to a golden chain. The rock had several red blots in them, that shone in the light of the photo studio, almost as if the rock had smallpox… It had been right there… Anoushka had taken her… But there was not a trace left of Mary when Harry was there… Except for the strange-tasting meat, and the bone broth… Meat that he had eaten, broth that he had drunk…

"You've seen something?" Richards asked. The question seemed to come from far, far away, as if Harry was being dragged up from underwater.

Harry glanced up at the man, and he was shocked to feel tears sting in his eyes as bile rose up in his throat. Anoushka had eaten her. _He_ had eaten her.

"Everything alright?" Richards asked.

Harry closed his eyes. A tear escaped from his eye and trickled softly down his trembling cheek. He opened his eyes again and met Richards'.

"That chain, sir," he said, nodding at the photograph. "I recognise it. Anoushka, the Wi… the woman, she had exactly such a chain in her house. I think she killed her. Mary."

Richards took the photo from the desk and regarded it closely as Smith watched the exchange sullenly from his chair.

"I see," Richards eventually said. "And will you be able to show us the house of this Anoushka, do you think?"

Harry chewed on his tongue as he watched the two officers, one looking at him expectantly, the other looking all but ready for yet another rant.

"Yes," he finally said, utterly drained. "Yes, I think so."

"Very well," Richards said, nodding.

It was getting late now. After a short, but heated discussion between the two officers about what to do with Harry, Smith won the argument, and Harry was placed in one of the cells inside the small police station for the night, with the promise that he would be handed over to the authorities in London once Harry had shown them Anoushka's house tomorrow. And so he was escorted through the halls by the two men until they reached a narrow hallway with several solid iron doors on either wall. They opened the nearest one, and ushered Harry inside. There was nothing there, except for a bed, a loo, and next to that a tiny washing basin.

The two men announced that dinner would be provided in an hour, and then they left Harry to himself inside the small confinement. Harry heard Smith's voice trickling into the cell from the hallway, and he picked up a few words like "mental" and "absolute waste of time".

Even though he had missed most of the previous night, Harry still felt wide awake as he sat down on the thin, lumpy mattress. The exchange with the two police officers had shaken him, and it was hard to grasp the sharp changes in surroundings of the past 24 hours. And still the horrifying scenes of last night in Anoushka's house fitted through his head, like flashes of lightning.

Dinner came, but Harry wasn't hungry. Even the thought of eating was enough to make him nauseous. It just made him think of Mary's fate, and what Anoushka would have done to his body if he hadn't killed her. And then there was also the matter of what would happen tomorrow. He had been able to stall some time by promising to show them to Anoushka's house, but he didn't know if there were any Muggle repelling charms on that area. His chances of leading the two officers into the forest, let alone retracing his steps and finding the house, were looking exceedingly slim. And after that, he would be off to London…

Someone came by later to take the dinner tray away again, and for the rest of the evening, Harry barely moved from his position on the bed as the thoughts of past and future coursed through his head. He eventually sunk into a restless sleep.

* * *

"… and I think you've all understood what we have to do tomorrow. Press them, chase them, hound them, do not give them even a second of rest. They'll want to play to their strengths and build up their plays carefully and meticulously. Well, ladies, are we going to let them?"

"No!" the players chorused.

"We may not be able to win the title this year, but tomorrow we'll show the media what we think of stories and nonsense! _"Unrest in the dressing room"_?We'll show them!"

Another approving cheer went around the table, and then the last meeting before the match between the Applebee Arrows and the Holyhead Harpies the next day was dismissed.

Another approving cheer went around the table.

As Ginny left the meeting room at the training facility inside the stadium, Olivia appeared next to her.

"Hiya," Ginny said to her, grabbing her coat from the hangers. "Excited for the match tomorrow?"

"How could I not be, after such a rousing speech by the coach?" Olivia quipped, nodding back at the room they'd just come from. "Hey, speaking of excited: what's going on with you today?"

"What d'you mean?" Ginny asked. They had to talk quite loudly to make themselves heard to each other between all the chattering going on around them by teammates and staff members.

"Just something I've noticed," Olivia said, shrugging. They began moving towards the exit. "You hardly sat still on your broom."

"Oh."

"And just now during the meeting, I got nervous just by looking at you!" she continued. "So, Ginnikins, is there something you'd like to tell me?"

"Well," Ginny began. Then she smiled and tossed her hair over her shoulder. "The _Daily Prophet_ is right, you know. I have a new boyfriend!"

Olivia froze and slowly turned to regard her with wide eyes.

"He's a real hunk, you know?"

"Is he?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Mmh, definitely," Ginny said, making a show of inspecting her nails.

"How old is this hunk we're talking about?"

"Oh, at least seventy."

"Oh dear."

"He's very rich."

"I bet."

"His name's Reginald."

"Very classy."

"Has a nice mansion."

"So do you."

"And he says he loves me deeply."

"Alright, enough fun," Olivia said. "Well, when I say fun…"

"Hey, you believed me for a moment there!" Ginny said, grinning.

"As if," Olivia huffed. They began walking again, and for a moment neither said a thing, until they'd exited the building. "Will you answer my question now?"

"Yeah, I don't know, to be honest," Ginny said. She looked down at her training shoes. They had quite a few holes and damaged bits, but any time when she resolved to buy a new pair, she'd always forget a few moments later. "I just feel like…"

"Yes?"

"Ugh, how do I explain this?" she groaned, clenching her fists. "It's just… like something big is about to happen. Do you know what I mean?"

"Kinda?" Olivia said, but with a confused expression. "Does it have to do with the match?"

"Nah, the match just a formality. We can't win the title anymore. No, it's something else, I think…"

"Anything big happening in your life?" Olivia pressed. They stopped when they reached the circle that marked the nearest Apparation point. "Apart from dear Reginald, of course."

"No, nothing. Just another weekend with a match and then a visit to my parents."

"Hmm." Olivia pressed her lips together. "Well, another explanation could be that you're a Seer, but your talent has been hidden until now."

"Very plausible, yes."

"But in all seriousness, strange things happen," Olivia continued at a more subdued tone.

"So you don't think I'm raving mad?" Ginny asked, but her laugh afterwards sounded much more nervous than she wanted it to be.

"Well, yes, but that's a whole other story."

"I just feel a bit stupid. It's probably nothing, is it?"

"Who knows?" Olivia said. "But you know, funny story. Well, it's not really funny, but it's relevant, I guess. I had an old aunt when I was young. She was really old, I remember, but absolutely healthy. Still did everything on her own, walked her overactive border collie many times, he was called Simon, and she visited us a lot as well. And then one night we get a Floo call from her neighbour, that she'd just… died. No explanation, it just happened. She was fine, her body was completely healthy… But her heart just stopped working. It wasn't a Killing Curse either. But the strangest thing was, and my mum told me this not so long ago, many years after this happened; the day before she died, she apparently told my mum, who was visiting her that day: "when I die, I want you to take care of Simon."" Olivia regarded Ginny, her expression fitting between amused and emotional. "It came from nowhere, like thunder at a clear sky. She'd never talked about such things before. And then not twelve hours later, she died."

"Strange…" Ginny mumbled.

"So I guess what I'm trying to say, is that sometimes those things just happen. That strange insight, I mean. You can't explain it, not even with all the crazy magic in our world."

They were silent for a moment. All the others had left by this point, leaving them alone outside, in the shadow of the large Quidditch station towering over them.

"If someone dies tonight," Ginny said, her lips quivering in mirth, "then I know who to blame."

Olivia smiled, but without humour. "I'll see you tomorrow, Gin. Don't lose too much sleep over this, okay?"

"I won't, Liv."

* * *

At least one of Olivia's predictions came true: Ginny did not close an eye that night. After tossing and turning for far too long, she eventually just gave up. She got up out of the bed, which was way too large for one person, slipped into her bathrobe and slippers, and walked the dark, narrow corridors downstairs, to the kitchen. She made a cup of hot chocolate, and then sat down at the dinner table.

There was a short note there, from Hermione, asking whether she had time in the coming days to visit them. It had been quite a while since they'd last seen each other. Ginny, though, hadn't had the energy to write a response, and she wasn't about to do it now.

She resorted to staring into the steaming mug as different conversations coursed through her head. The isolated snippets seamlessly flowed into other memories as she teetered on the edge of wakefulness. Olivia's words, and those of other people; Andromeda, Hermione, Craig, Harry… It was as if there was a crowd in her head that would not shut up.

And then Olivia's head floated up, taking up her vision.

"Sometimes these things just happen, Gin," she said. Her head split into two different faces, looking vaguely like Olivia's family members: dark-skinned, braided hair, tall and skinny.

"Take care of Simon for me," one said, handing the other a writhing and barking dog.

"But you're not even dead, you daft hag!" the other protested.

Then the scene changed again, and this time Ginny was running after someone through a dark forest. She only caught glimpses of him here and there, and no matter how fast she ran, she never got closer to him, and eventually she had to stop, when her lungs felt like they would burst.

Hermione then appeared by her side.

"Really, Ginny, given up already?" she asked in annoyance, rubbing her hands on her pregnant stomach. "I'm pregnant, and even I could do better than you!"

"How can I be as good as you, then?" Ginny asked. She groaned and turned away from her friend.

"You could start by finding yourself a stable partner," Hermione said, her voice sharp and taunting.

"But what about Harry, then?" Ginny asked, turning back to look at her.

"How should I know?" Hermione replied, spreading her arms in a helpless gesture. "He's miles away by now, isn't he?"

"Yeah, but only because you're talking to me!"

"You were the one who stopped running," Hermione said, one corner of her mouth curling up.

"Oh, of course."

They stared at each other.

"I'll just, erm… go after him, then." Ginny said, pointing in the direction where he'd run off to.

"Finally, some common sense."

* * *

Ginny gasped as she was suddenly woken up. She raised her head and blearily looked around. Then she remembered that she was alone, in the dimly lit kitchen of Grimmauld Place. She felt the mug in front of her. It had cooled down a lot. She must've been asleep for quite some time.

A sudden stinging sensation in her hip brought her attention to why she'd woken up again, and she quickly retrieved the galleon from the pocket of her bathrobe. It was hot to the touch, and she quickly laid it onto the table, to read what it said.

_Found Harry. Floo me. C._

Ginny rubbed her eyes, and then read the message Craig had sent her again. And again. And only on the third time did it sink in. And she shot up, feeling as if she'd been electrified. Her whole body seemed to tingle, and hear heartbeat, which had already been restless, seemed to move at galloping speed.

She pushed the chair back and caught it just in time before it toppled over backwards. For a moment, she stood there, perfectly still, bent over, one hand grasping the back of the chair. Then she placed it on all four legs again and rushed to the opposite side of the large room, leaping over the couch. She came to a stop in front of the fireplace, and knelt down, slightly out of breath, before pinching a bit of Floo powder.

"15, Andrew Road!" she cried, throwing the powder into the hearth. Green flames burst up without giving off heat, and she leant forwards until her head popped up in the fireplace of Auror Craig Robertson. She was greeted with a dark living room, and Craig himself seated at the dining table. When he caught sight of her, he jumped up, cried her name, and ran towards the fireplace.

"You saw my message?" he asked. He looked tired, but his eyes shone an almost manic energy.

"I did. D'you want to come through?"

"Of course!"

A few seconds after Ginny had retreated her head, Craig tumbled out of the fireplace in the living room of Grimmauld Place.

"What's going on?" Ginny asked immediately.

"Help me up?"

Ginny grasped his hand and pulled him to his feet. Neither felt like sitting down, and so they remained standing there.

"Right, first things first," Craig began. "We've got a self-writing ledger – Muggles call it a fax machine – set up in the Auror office that alerts us whenever the Muggle police have arrested someone on our wanted list…"

"Harry told me about that when he set it up," Ginny said quickly. "And?"

"Harry himself has just now popped up on the list."

"Shit," was the first thing that escaped her mouth. "Do you know anything else?"

"Yeah, Claire warned me just now and gave me all the information we've got. He's in Wales, somewhere near the border near Wrexham. I don't know what he was arrested for, though."

"And he's still there?" Ginny urged.

"Yes, he is."

"Do you know where to Apparate us to?"

"Leslie… Auror Proudfoot says he does, and his shift is almost over." He glanced at his watch. "We've kept it hidden from Head Auror Robards so far, but it won't be long before he finds out, so we've got only a small head start on the Aurors on official duty."

"What are we waiting for, then?"

"Exactly." He turned back to the fireplace. "We're going to Proudfoot's apartment. It's on Lee Street 76."

"Hang on, I'll pull on some clothes first."

"Alright, but hurry!"

Ginny rushed up to her bedroom, skipping more steps than she'd ever done. She flew into the jeans and pullover she'd worn last evening, and then flew back downstairs again.

"Ready," she announced when she re-entered the living room.

Craig, who had been pacing around the coffee table, nodded at her, and stepped up to the fireplace. Green flames already burned bright in it. He stepped in and after shouting the address, he disappeared.

Before she stepped through as well, Ginny took one last look around the empty, dark room, where she'd spent most of her solitary considerations for the past year and a half. The wait seemed to finally be over now, and only just did it begin to dawn on her how monumental it was what was about to happen. She took a deep, steadying breath, called Proudfoot's address, and she disappeared with a soft _plop_.


	16. Chapter 15

Harry had watched from his bed the past hour as the light of the sun slowly moved up on the wall at the far end of the cell, until it grew redder and eventually disappeared. And still the one question in his mind was how he had ended up here. Life had seemed so hopeful before, that one glorious moment when he had found the edge of the forest, but it had all come crashing down when the two police officers came across him.

He wondered how he could have ever been so naïve. How it could be that he hadn't learned a thing from what had happened during his time on the run. Of course the happiness wouldn't last. That much was clear now. He was cursed.

He knew, deep inside, that his wallowing was useless, and that he was only giving his defeat-embracing mindset more room. But he could not find the will in him to stop it and focus on something else instead.

Voices trickled in from the corridor outside his cell, and he veered up. But he only heard a few bangs on the wall, a man screaming obscenities, followed by the calmer voice of a policeman telling him to shut his mouth.

Harry sunk back down onto his bed again. For one moment he expected that the voices belonged to people who had come to free him. He half expected the cell door to open up as well before it became clear what the shouting was really all about. He almost wanted to laugh at the last sliver of hope he apparently still possessed.

It was the environment, he realised, that was getting to him. The smell, slightly off, the evenly grey walls, the green-painted iron door, the sparse furnishing. He knew that he had no space to stretch and walk to give his nervousness an outlet, which in turn fed his anxious feelings even more. It was a vicious cycle with two causes that reinforced each other, deepening his restless stirrings, his troubled heart more and more, beating faster and faster. He thought back to his numerous patrol shifts on Azkaban, the cursed, clammy atmosphere of the monolithic prison, the oppressive walls that leaked water, algae and foul residue of lingering curses, confining him to dark, narrow corridors where the echoes of furious maddened prisoners reverbed around his head constantly, penetrating through his ears, into his brain…

As he recalled those horrible hours, the man in the cell next to him began screaming again. After a few seconds it was followed by clattering sounds of the man banging on his door as he shouted unintelligible vulgarities. Footsteps could then be heard in the corridor. A latch opened, and the screaming subsided somewhat as an officer spoke to him. Harry then heard the prisoner shout something that sounded like "you fucking knobhead" before the latch closed, and the footsteps went back out of the corridor.

As he listened to the seething curses next door, he closed his eyes and let his breathing even out again, finding a strange comfort in the difference between himself and the man in the cell next to him. That his sanity had not sunk that low yet.

And then something peculiar happened. The lamp mounted into the high ceiling of his cell giving off a cold white light, started flickering briefly. At the same time, the stream of curses in the adjacent cell stopped.

Then he heard footsteps again, but this time two people. They came to a halt in front of Harry's cell.

He veered up and froze, staring at the door as he heard a key being pushed into the keyhole, followed by the clicking and grinding of the lock mechanic, and then the door swung open.

In stepped a policeman in uniform, who Harry didn't recognise, and followed by him was none other than Corban Yaxley. His long white hair and dark clothes were immaculate as always.

"Here you are," the policeman said. As he turned around, Harry saw a strange glassiness reflected in his eyes.

 _Imperius Curse_ , he thought, the hairs on his neck raising up. The door closed again, leaving him alone in the small cell with Yaxley, who hadn't taken his eyes off him since he'd entered.

"Dear, oh dear, Harry, how the tables have turned," he said. Harry noticed he lacked the air of nonchalance he normally had.

"If you're gonna kill me, then please just get it over with," Harry said as he stood up from his mattress.

"I'm not going to kill you," he said. To demonstrate, he pocketed his wand slowly. "But you and I need to leave, right now."

"What the hell is–"

"I've got no time to explain," he interjected. He took a step closer but stopped when Harry raised his fists and stepped back.

"Then make time, Yaxley. I don't believe you for a second! You've placed that policeman under the Imperius Curse, didn't you?"

Yaxley sighed and furrowed his brows as he briefly looked down at his feet.

"They know you've been arrested," he said, raising his head again to look Harry in the eyes. "Aurors are on their way now, I'm fairly sure."

Harry opened his mouth but closed it again as he stared in shock at the man in front of him. "Damn it, of course!" he whispered after a moment of silence. "And what about you, then? How did you find out?"

"A few ears here and there. That doesn't matter. What _does_ matter, is that I'm your only way out of here, so if you want to avoid the Ministry, then I'd suggest you and I make ourselves scarce right now."

Harry said nothing, and then slowly shook his head.

"Why do you think I'd go with you, then? I'd rather get arrested than get killed by you, to be fairly honest with you."

"For God's sake, Harry, there's no time!" Yaxley sighed, scratched the top of his head. "Here, will this do, then?" He then stuck his hand in the inner pocket of his coat and brandished a wand.

Confusion mounted as he saw what it was. "Is that my wand?" Harry asked, peering at it. An urge to laugh at the absurdity came up.

"Yes, it is," he replied. He laid it in the palm of his open hand and extended his arm towards Harry. "Take it!" he urged. "C'mon, quickl!"

Harry slowly reached out and grasped his wand. Nothing happened. Yaxley didn't close his hand around his, nor did he use the occasion to curse him. He simply pulled back his arm and nodded in apparent satisfaction.

"I hope that convinces you," he said. "Look, a lot has happened recently. Safe to say, the cards have been shuffled since you've left. It's absolute chaos, and you and I are going to find a way out of this mess. Now stop dallying and come with me!"

Before Harry could interject again, Yaxley banged on the iron door.

"We're done here," he announced. Again, the lock mechanic turned, and the door swung open with a considerable amount of noise, revealing the same policeman. As they passed him by in the door opening, Harry clearly saw the misty, absent look in his eyes that was so characteristic of the Imperius Curse.

"You still need to get your possessions back, right?" Yaxley asked as he pulled Harry through the hallway towards the exit.

"Yeah."

They arrived at the main desk, but there was no one there behind the counter. Harry realised they hadn't passed anyone at all on their way here.

"Where is everybody?" he asked.

"It's almost midnight, there's no one in here at all," he replied while he pulled his wand from his pocket. He waved it twice. A few bangs could be heard in the room behind the counter. Then the wooden door slammed open, and out zoomed Harry's Invisibility Cloak and wand holster.

"Take them, quickly!" Yaxley hissed, throwing a look over his shoulder as Harry strapped the wand holster around his left arm and crammed the Cloak underneath his shirt.

"Alright, don't be scared, I'm gonna Apparate us out of here," Yaxley said. Before Harry could register the words, the man seized his arm, and the police station disappeared before their eyes as they Apparated away.

* * *

They appeared, and the first thing Harry noticed was a strong gust of wind blowing through his long hair. It was dark here, and he saw no sign of civilisation anywhere. His feet stood in a layer of wet heath, and around him he saw the dark contours of a moor stretching out as far as he could see. The moon was nowhere to be seen behind a blanket of fast-moving clouds.

Harry spun on his feet to face Yaxley.

"Where are we?" he asked, whipping out his wand and aiming it at the man. He saw only the contours of him in the near total darkness.

"Yorkshire," he replied. "Please, Harry, I want to explain some things to you before you Disapparate or curse me."

"This had better be good, then," Harry called as another strong gust of wind swept past them on the bare hill they stood on. "I've been investigating your handiwork for far too long to be able to trust you."

"And yet here you are," Yaxley said. "I haven't cast an anti-Apparation curse on you, so you could have left at any time, yet you're still here. Thank you for showing that faith in me."

"It wasn't faith," Harry said. _"Lumos."_

The tip of his wand lit up, illuminating them both, as well as the shrubbery and rocks they were standing on. From this close proximity to the man he had been chasing for so many years, he saw many lines showing old age and fatigue, lines that had always been invisible from the faraway position he had always been forced to observe him from.

"Recent times have taken a toll on you," Yaxley said.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "I was about to say the same to you, old man."

Yaxley's wrinkled face shifted into a wry grin. "How alike we have become, my fellow fugitive. Do you realise where we are standing right now?"

"Some moor in the middle of nowhere?" Harry asked. Something at the back of his mind stirred in recognition, but why that was, it didn't dawn on him.

"Correct," Yaxley said. "But partly. Follow me, and it'll become clear to you."

Yaxley turned his back on him. A rash urge sprung up inside Harry to curse the man in the back and run away. But another, stronger, voice told him to wait and hear what the man had to say to him. His behaviour had intrigued him, and he moved to follow the man downhill.

"It's not far from here," Yaxley called to him, turning his head slightly as he walked ahead of Harry. "But the protective spells around it have not worn off yet, so we couldn't Apparate directly to it."

"What do you mean, "worn off"?" Harry asked, still aiming his lit up wand to the back of the man in front of him.

"You'll see."

The sneakers Harry had borrowed from the policemen were not waterproof, and as they walked through the heath, which was still wet from earlier showers, his feet became progressively wetter and wetter, slowly chilling his body. As the wind picked up again, he started shivering. His wand shook feebly in his hand.

"Just around this bend," Yaxley then called. "Be careful not to step in the small stream here."

Harry looked down at his feet to see water flowing over the rocks in the deepest point of the small depression they were walking through. Looking up again, he saw the dark contours of a moderate-sized oak where the valley took a turn to the left. They passed it, and once it no longer shielded the view from them, Harry could see a hill emerge, rising steeply. On top of the hill stood a house, or rather a mansion, its large form outlined starkly against the stormy night sky.

"Welcome," Yaxley said, "to Blackwater Park."

Harry didn't avert his gaze from the mansion towering on the hill above them. He saw a central main building, the most prominent part of the structure, that was surrounded by a few other wings, some rising higher than the others. Behind these parts he saw some other roofs that barely stuck out over the hill.

"What are we doing here?" Harry asked.

"You'll see, once we get inside," Yaxley replied, still marching on.

They came to a stop at a low stone wall that was barely visible above the shrubbery.

"Here's the path that goes up," Yaxley said, stroking his chin. "It's been taken over by the moor for the most part, but just follow me, and try not to trip over the roots."

With that said, he placed his hand on the moss- and algae-covered rocks and stepped over them. Harry followed him and jumped over as well, landing on a thick net of heath plants and roots.

"There used to be a road here, wide enough for carts to ride over it," Yaxley said as he carefully began walking uphill.

"It has completely disappeared," Harry remarked. Only here and there was a small glimpse of light-brown gravel underneath the creeping foliage.

They came closer and closer to the house as they trudged along what once was a road up the hill, and the imposing nature of it only increased now that they stood in its shadow underneath the high stone walls. And fleeting wisps of cloud stormed by low in the sky, vaguely distinguished from the scarred, ever-changing blanket of stormy clouds above them.

As they got closer to the main entrance and the clearing in front of it, the gravel road became more and more visible, appearing further from underneath the blanket of heath that had taken over. The clearing itself was bordered by hedges, or what used to be. The plants, which he recognised from the tidy hedges used in all English estates, reached not higher than his hip, and instead of an even green leaf cover, they were marred by bald spots, where a maze of bare brown branches could be seen. He imagined that they were once neatly trimmed, with the same height and thickness. But that was far from how it really was: these plants reached random heights and didn't really have the rectangular shape anymore that they were supposed to have. And reaching underneath them, into the clearing, were the creeping fingers of the moor, grey and brown strings of heath plants snaking towards the still bare centre of the clearing, where he stood.

"This way, Harry," Yaxley said. They moved across the faded, mossy clearing, towards the main entrance, and climbed the short but steep stairs to the grand double doors. The feeling of having been here before only grew stronger with every step that Harry took. The feeling was so strong that the hairs on his neck raised up in disquiet. But his memory was too muddled.

The door was made of sturdy wood, but the many years of harsh northern weather had had an impact on it. The wood was coloured, blotchy, and many holes made by woodworm could be seen. The knockers and doorknobs were rusted into a virtually unrecognisable state. The classical pillars on either side of the doorway were marred by missing stone chips here and there, and the white paint had faded away almost completely.

Yaxley placed his wand on the rusty lock and murmured some enchantments that Harry couldn't understand, until they heard a click, and the doors slowly swung open. The hinges protested loudly as they gave way for the first time in ages. Echoes from inside reached their ears as the opening half-arched doors opened with much creaking and groaning.

Apprehension struck Harry as they were faced with the obscure darkness of the other side. Sounds came from there as well: dripping water, howling wind, and other sounds he didn't know or understand the source of.

"It's quite safe," Yaxley assured him.

"Coming from you, that's not reassuring," Harry mumbled.

Yaxley simply grinned at him. "Safer than in the hands of the Ministry, that's for sure," he said, and he stepped through the doorway. Harry followed in behind him.

* * *

Ginny's visit to Proudfoot's small apartment went by in a frenzied haze as she and the Aurors Craig, Proudfoot and Claire Johnson quickly discussed what was happening. Ginny found it hard to concentrate, as the thrilling anticipation of finally seeing Harry again took hold of her firmly.

"All we know was that a local precinct in the countryside near Wrexham arrested someone called Harry Potter," Claire said, her voice and stature assured and authoritative. It was a complete turnaround from the year before, when she had been under the Imperius Curse from Yaxley for months. "It alerted the charmed fax machine that Robards installed in the office in his hunt for Harry, but me and Proudfoot were the only ones in the room at the time. No one else knows, and because we have approximately no time whatsoever, we'll just have to keep it that way. We're not supposed to be here, by the way, and I don't know how long we can keep Robards and his goons from knowing what is happening. So we're going to Apparate in there, get Harry out, and leave, hopefully before anyone else shows up. Got that?"

They Apparated into the open area before the police station. The road it was situated next to was abandoned, it was dark outside, and there were only a couple of lights on inside the building. They strode inside quickly after making sure there was no one else there. They found an empty reception area, and after finding their way to the holding cells, they also found a police officer with a dazed look in his eyes as he sat on a bench and stared blankly at the wall ahead.

"Hello there," he announced when he saw the four people walk towards him through the narrow hall. He stood up to face them. "Are you here for a prisoner as well?"

Ginny saw Claire and Proudfoot exchange concerned looks.

"His eyes…" Proudfoot muttered.

"No time," Claire declared softly.

"Where's Harry Potter?" Ginny demanded, stepping forward to face him.

"Oh, I'm afraid you're a bit late for him," he replied with a cheery voice. "A gentleman came by just now and visited him. They left together. Warms my heart, it does, to see that even these criminals here have people who look out for them."

"What did he look like?" Craig demanded, his voice shaking with the same dreadful fear that Ginny felt stab through her heart.

"Oh, he had long, grey hair and very nice clothes. Bit strange to see his sort here, but we're living in strange times after all."

"Alright," Claire said. She took out her wand, and Ginny saw it shaking in the cold light of the hallway. _"Finite!"_ she said, pointing her wand at the policeman's forehead.

His gaze changed, and lost its muddled nature. He stumbled for a moment, and then clutched his head with one hand.

"Wha…" he muttered.

"Sir?" Claire asked. He looked up at her just in time to see the light of the Memory Charm hit him.

"He'll be alright, I hope," she said as they collectively turned around and strode out again. "God damn it! How the fuck did Yaxley get here ahead of us?"

"Never mind that, where do we go now?" Ginny asked, looking back at the three Aurors behind her.

"The Yaxley family home," Craig said in an assured tone. "Blackwater Park, in the Yorkshire Moors. Do you all know where that is?"

Ginny met Craig's tense gaze, and she groaned. "That's where we searched just after Harry disappeared!"

They Apparated there, but as they approached the manor, she felt a physical force pushing her and Craig back out, away from their destination. They landed in the middle of a craggy field next to Claire and Proudfoot.

"Anti-Apparation Charms," Proudfoot breathed. "Come on, this way!"

The four of them set off through the heath, in the dark of the night. Water that stood still splashed around their feet, soaking their shoes and pants, but they didn't stop as they ran through the small valley towards the manor where, hopefully, Yaxley and Harry still were.

"Please," Ginny heard herself say. "Please, let them be there."

* * *

Yaxley waved his wand at various places in the entrance hall, lighting up candles that were mounted on the walls. The room was increasingly illuminated, and Harry now finally saw the full extent of it. The idea of faded glory continued here. The marble floor had lost all its gloss and was covered in dust and dark smudges. The ornamental wooden panels on the wall were in a similar state and had started to rot here and there. The walls had several doorways in them, some of which were opened, and one of them even lacked a door to begin with. The candles, set in holders that were mounted to the plastered walls, illuminated and emphasised the many faults and tears that marked the walls. Centrally in the long, high entrance hall stood a grand staircase leading up to a landing. Cobwebs decorated the railings, which looked ready to collapse if he leaned against them, and the steps, made of the same marble that made up the floor, looked faded, and plenty of chips were missing from them.

And above it, Harry's memory and sight started to blur and merge into one, as time seemed to stand still and warp itself, folding itself over until he vividly saw happenings of long ago before him… The Yaxley patriarch standing defiantly on the landing, speaking to the sea of Aurors that stood below him… The first spells struck, and the man collapsed under the ceaseless spell-fire of the Ministerial forces… And afterwards, silence, and hushed whispers of the Aurors as they realised that the man wasn't a Death Eater… And finally the grey eyes of the young Corban, that widened in disbelief as he drank in the sight of his dead father.

Harry sucked in a shocked breath as he pulled his consciousness back into the present, and he turned to the man next to him. His eyes still had the same colour, but emotion had long since left them, and they were now lined with baggy, wrinkled skin. It all clicked in place.

"This is the Yaxley manor," he slowly said. "And on that landing…"

They turned towards the torn apart balcony at the top of the stairs.

"You know the details, then?" Yaxley asked, speaking through his clenched jaw.

"Oh yes."

"Then do you understand me?" he asked as they turned back to each other and Harry once again had to look in his eyes. "What they've made me become?" he gripped Harry's shoulder. "How could I ever have become a normal member of our society after witnessing that? After seeing the Ministry's true face violate me and my family like that?" As he spoke, his wrinkles became more and more pronounced as grief malformed his face more and more into an expression of anguish.

And a shock of empathy for the man before him pierced his heart, but at the same time another image was conjured up in him: Ollivander, the old wandmaker, tied to his chair in his living quarters above the shop, his body mutilated in a horrific manner…

"What grief the Ministry caused you…" he swallowed as that sharp sting of empathy constricted his voice. "What the Aurors caused you… is nowhere near the grief you caused yourself." He breathed in and felt himself strengthened by that conclusion. Yaxley winced as he spoke. "You've killed, tortured, tore families apart…"

And Yaxley broke. A short anguished cry was wrenched from his throat, and he sank to his knees before Harry.

"I know, I know, I know," he stammered, his hands reaching up to clench Harry's jumper, his fingers curled up like claws. Harry took a step back. "But I can't help it, Harry! I can't help the second person that is inside me, telling me to do things! Telling me to kill, maim, to take revenge on everyone! I kept him inside as long as I can, so I can behave like people want me to, like a gentleman at the top of the pecking order, but…" He crawled forward, and Harry moved further back, up a few steps of the stairway.

Yaxley squeezed his eyes shut. Tears were pushed out through the lines there during his outburst. "And then _He_ came for me, and offered me a place by his side, where I could let go of my repressed second self, my Mr. Hyde, my unconscious being, and at the same time make those people who killed my father pay… You _know_ , Harry, you _know_ the insidious power that the Dark Lord had over others, don't you? You know! Remember Ginny Weasley, how he made a completely innocent girl do all those things, and that was only with a fraction of his soul! When you're kneeled in front of him, and he enters his mind, sifts through your entire being, and judges you, understands you, and _wants_ you…" A shudder went through the curled up, impassioned figure as he breathed in deeply, yet the tension never left his body language. "He understood what the world had done to me… They all made me the way I am now, Harry. The Ministry planted the seed, and the Dark Lord tended to it, grew it, refined it… Do you see it? Tell me that you see it! That you understand it!"

Harry swallowed as he looked down at the broken figure at his feet, who had exploded into an outcry of the very core of his being. The sight of the Ollivander was conjured up in him, what Yaxley had done to the kindly old wandmaker, how he tied him up in a chair and tortured him in horrific manners. Yet at the same time he remembered the child, who witnessed the murder of his father inside his own safe home, his familiarity. The two images, the past events, conjured up from his memories, fitted around him, and were accompanied by sights of the Rookery, and Xenophilius Lovegood's blood splattered all over the living room, and the small limp body of the Hogwarts House Elf, perforated by obscenely large stab wounds… The violence of all these images, offset, contrasted sharply, by the seemingly calm countenance of Yaxley. After more than a decade of chasing after him, of grasping at loose straws, whispered rumours, weary stress-fuelled meetings and discussions among the Aurors, he now finally felt like he completely understood the man who was now in the flesh before him. Here, in the dim hallway of Yaxley's faded glory, Harry got as close as any human being could ever come to understanding another man, to breaking through that boundary that separates each individual from one another. And he knew now that Yaxley hadn't brought him here without a particular reason.

"What do you want with me?" Harry asked, his voice trembling, tears pooling in his eyes from sheer empathy.

The tears made his vision swim, but through that he saw Yaxley's rapturous grief morph into something else. A beastly look appeared on his face, and he uttered something between a sob and a roar as he jumped up and reached for Harry. He was prepared for that, and he jumped further up the staircase. But he hadn't used his wand in such a long time that he did not react in time to Yaxley's drawn wand. It shook in his grasp, but the Body-Bind Curse took hold. Harry's arms and legs snapped together, and he slowly toppled backwards, landing painfully on the marble steps.

Yaxley sobbed and slowly crawled forward over to enter his vision. And pain seared through him as the man crawled on top of him and sunk a knife into his stomach.

"I hate this," he spoke in between his uncontrolled sobbing. "It wasn't a lie, what I told you. Every word, Harry, I meant every word! But my Mr. Hyde is still here!" Tears streamed from his face and landed on Harry's chest and throat. "I can't help it! It's too late for me, the monster inside has already won!" He laid his head on Harry's chest, and Harry felt another shock of intense pain rush through him as the knife entered him once again. Confusion, panic, pain, it all seared through Harry's body as it was violated by the man lying on top of him.

Yaxley brought his fist down onto Harry's chest, and the air was wrenched from his lungs. "I…" he began, but he could not finish that sentence as sobs overtook him once again. Harry feebly tried to move his arms, but the heavy weight of Yaxley was pressing down on his whole body, and he felt his powers flow away through the wounds in his chest.

"I want to go home," Yaxley then croaked, his wheezing mouth close to Harry's ear. "I miss my Papa." His arm slid across Harry's body, down towards his forearm, where it found the Elder Wand.

And Yaxley took the holster from him and strapped it around his own arm. Harry felt not only the leather depart him. The gravity of this event was far more than that. Yaxley had bested him and the Wand recognised its new vessel. The Elder Wand was torn from him, and with that action the link that tethered the tainted artefact to his soul, was severed.

Yaxley shuddered as he breathed in, and his eyes rolled to the back of his head for a moment.

"I feel it," he uttered. He opened his eyes, and fear stabbed through Harry. Something had changed. The grey in his eyes was brighter, it almost emitted light, and Harry felt something supernatural in that gaze pierce through him. The tears, the sobbing, the uneven breath, it stopped, and was replaced by the calm countenance that Yaxley usually showed.

"And I want revenge, Harry," he said. Something in his voice had shifted, deepened, sharpened. It was the same, except that there was something terribly wrong about it. "And with these Deathly Hallows, I will deliver it to every son of a bitch wearing red robes or a Ministry badge."

Harry's vision began to fade.

* * *

The manor was not far now. Ginny saw it on the top of the hill, its contours dominating the cloudy night sky. They reached a low, overgrown, stone wall, and climbed over it. That's when they saw a road, peaking through the heath here and there, and they followed it up the hill.

"Wands ready," Claire said. Not that it was necessary – they all had their wands out already.

With every step they took up the hill, Ginny felt herself shaking more and more, the anticipation of seeing Harry again overtaking her emotions more and more until there was nothing left but thought-numbing excitement.

They reached the top, and walked across the clearing at the front entrance.

"Do we sneak in silently?" Ginny heard Proudfoot whisper behind her, but she paid no mind to that, and instead aimed her wand at the front door.

" _Bombarda!"_ she called, and the heavy wooden doors were blasted in with a terrible noise. She ran in, vaguely aware of the Aurors following her. They stopped in the centre of the entrance hall and looked around, taking in the wasted state of it.

"I don't see anyone…" Proudfoot began, but Ginny's eyes fell on a suspicious dark spot mid-way up the stairs.

"Look here," she said with trembling voice. They climbed up the steps and kneeled next to the dark spot. "Blood." _Harry's blood_ , she continued in her panicked thoughts.

Claire stuck her wand in it. "Fresh," she commented.

"Harry's," Ginny stated. She closed her eyes at the touch and breathed out. "So where could they have gone?" she asked at a more even tone. "There are no footprints or anything, and there's no trail of blood."

"They probably Apparated away," Craig suggested.

"Can we find out where to?" she asked.

"I can, I think," Craig said slowly, but his pensive expression told Ginny otherwise.

"I sense a "but"?"

"There's no time," Craig said. "I'll get started. Stand back, you lot, and then you can explain it."

"This is very advanced magic that few people know," Proudfoot explained as Craig began murmuring strange incantations and waving his wand around in the air around the pool of blood. "When we Apparate, a bit of magic gets left behind. Because it's a spell, right? And all spells leave their traces."

Ginny nodded.

"What Craig is doing now, is he's trying to pinpoint the magic that's still present here, and to see if he can find the Destination of the Apparition in there," Claire went on. "It's a form of Legillimency, but then instead of trying to read a mind to find thoughts, you read residual magic."

"I didn't know this was possible," Ginny said. "Why don't more people do this, then?"

"Because this is very advanced magic, for starters," Claire said. "Not many people are able to do it, in the first place, as it takes immense amounts of practice. Even then, it's very hard to perform, because the circumstances have to be perfect. It has to be quiet, so that the caster is able to concentrate, the air has to be still so that the magic doesn't dissipate, and if there were too many magic spells cast in the area, it gets harder to pinpoint the Apparition in the mess of magical traces."

"So this room here is perfect?" Ginny asked, lowering her voice and keeping half an eye on Craig, who was now busy jabbing his wand in seemingly random directions.

"Yes, but even then, it has to be done quickly, or else the magic has already diffused throughout the room too much," Claire said. "I mean, it would be a small miracle in itself is Craig is able to–"

"Got it!" Craig announced at that exact moment. He turned around to face them. His face shone with a layer of perspiration and he was breathing heavily, as if he'd just run a marathon.

"What do you see?" Proudfoot asked.

"I see a beach," he replied, his gaze becoming distant. "It's abandoned, the waves are quite strong, and there's a rowing boat in the sand nearby."

"Are you able to get us there?" Claire asked.

"I think so."

"No time to lose, then."

When Harry came to again, he immediately became aware that he was rocking back and forth, and then side to side. Then he smelled salty air, and heard waves rushing. He opened his eyes and found himself staring up at the night sky and Yaxley. The man seemed to sense his wakefulness, because he turned down to meet Harry's eyes.

"You're still alive," he said. His eyes glittered unnaturally bright in the moonlight, and there was no trace left of his ragged emotions.

"Where are we going?"

"Out to sea," Yaxley replied. Harry tried to lift his head to see where he was, but as he attempted to do so, a sharp pain slashed through his belly and chest as he was forcefully reminded of the gaping knife wounds there. "I'm going to bury you once and forever, Harry, so that we can finally set this feud of ours aside."

Harry wanted to come up with a reply, a comeback, any act of defiance to show the man that he wasn't done for just yet. But he had nothing, this time. He was grievously wounded, he had no idea where he was, and Yaxley now had the Elder Wand. There was no hope left. They sailed on, the only light coming from the stars above and the pale lantern that was attached to the front of the boat.

"If you…" Harry began, but he had to stop when something blocked his throat, and he coughed. He tasted blood, and something dribbled from the side of his mouth. Yet he looked up at Yaxley. "If you think you're done after killing me," he said, breathing in with a strange gurgling sound, "you're wrong."

The corners of Yaxley's mouth curled up. "Mm, coming from a man who has been a lonely fugitive for over a year, that's not too convincing."

"They're looking for me," Harry wheezed. He didn't know why he said this, but there was a steely conviction somewhere inside his dying body that would not abate. "And they won't stop."

"We'll see about that," Yaxley said. "Chances are that I'll find them first, Ginny included. I know where she lives, Harry. Remember when I had your ex and that adorable Auror trainee under my command? They were right there, you know, wherever you and your girlfriend went. Julie was even in your home, listening in on everything that you were doing. And they told all that to me. And after you left, I never stopped watching." The corners of his mouth curled up. "I've seen Ginny. Looking for you. Convincing others to help. Going to Quidditch practices, to friends, family… your Godson… And then coming home all alone, oh so vulnerable…" For a moment his smooth façade twisted. "I was tempted to do something, but she hasn't made it easy for me. She was too watchful, too quick." He shook his head. "But no matter. I have the Elder Wand and the Invisibility Cloak now. She'll be no match for the Master of Death."

He tapped his wand against the boat, and they came to a stop.

"I think we've come quite far enough now," Yaxley said. He turned down again, and there was a strange affection in his expression. "Good-bye, Harry. You've been a worthy foe, but this is the end of the line." He paused. "Thank you for understanding me. It comforts me that there was at least someone out there who knew what I've been through."

And then Harry felt himself being levitated in the air, pushed to the side, and then he fell into the sea.

The water was cold, freezing cold. It impacted his body with full force and wrenched his breath from him. He tasted salt, and his ears filled with water. He desperately kicked his legs and moved his arms until he surfaced again, but he felt like he had used the last of his strength with that.

When he came up, he was in near total darkness. The moon was nowhere to be seen, the stars seemed dimmer than normal and in the distance he saw the pale, solitary lantern of Yaxley's boat fade out of sight.

He watched it disappear and continued staring even after he could no longer see it, and then the drowsiness returned in full force. His legs and arms felt like they were made out of lead, and the stab wounds started to sting more and more as they came in contact with the salty water. His chin submerged, then his mouth, and then he couldn't breathe anymore and he was sinking fast down to the deep, dark bottom of the sea.

* * *

Ginny and the other Aurors appeared onto the scene that Craig had described to them. The smell of the sea and the sound of waves crashing onto the beach greeted them. In the distance, Ginny thought, there was something moving, on the surface of the sea.

"Look there," she said, pointing towards the dim light.

"Looks like a boat," Proudfoot said, squinting his eyes.

It was indeed. It neared them with a lot of speed, and then seemed to change direction, so that it beached at a considerable distance from them. In the little amount of light that the stars gave off, she clearly saw long, grey hair fluttering in the wind.

"It's fucking Yaxley," Claire growled. It was as if those words were magic. The three Aurors jumped into action and ran as fast as they could towards the man, but Ginny didn't follow. There was only one person in that boat, and he was returning from sea.

The Aurors reached Yaxley, just as he Apparated away. They stopped for a moment, seemed to be in conversation, and then disappeared as well, leaving Ginny all alone on the dark, deserted beach. She peered out. Somewhere out there, she was sure of it, was Harry. But there was no sign of him. She walked forward until the waves kissed her toes, but it was impossible to see anything in this utter darkness.

"Harry!" she called hesitantly. She immediately felt stupid for doing so. The words were taken from her mouth and carried away by the wind.

* * *

Pressure built in Harry's ears as he descended deeper and deeper. What little light was left near the surface, now disappeared as well. Dark forms he didn't recognise swam by in the distance, then came closer, and then he saw a thing before him that resembled a grotesque parody of a grinning face. It was entirely black, its eyes glowed red, and it had far too many teeth. He heard its mocking laugh (was the sound real, or did it just echo in his head?), and for a moment he was transported back to the pool of leeches, back in the forest in Wales. He'd seen this face before, he realised. Then, as soon as it had emerged from the vast underwater darkness, it disappeared again. He wondered who, or what it was.

 _Oh, what does it matter,_ he thought, _it's all over now._

However heavy his body felt, his heart felt heavier. Never again would he see Ginny, Teddy, or his two oldest friends Ron and Hermione. Never again would he feel the utter freedom of flying on a broom. All the people he loved, all the joys in life, he had to say goodbye to all of that now. And there was no Dumbledore waiting for him now at King's Cross station. No trickery with the Deathly Hallows, no well-timed discovery. His tears went unseen and unnoticed in the water. This was the end.

The first specs of light started to appear, and Harry, thinking it was a sign of his life slipping from his body, welcomed them. There were more of them, and now sounds started to wash into his consciousness as well. Waves rushing towards land, seagulls screaming in the salty air.

Waves… seagulls… salty air. But that wasn't possible, was it? He was deep underwater, he wasn't supposed to be hearing this.

Then he began to feel things that didn't belong this deep underwater either: the sun warming the top half of his body as he floated in the water. The sun, reflecting against the vibrant surface of the water, casting off the very specs of light that he saw earlier. And a warm body that was pressed against him. Wet, red hair cascading over his chest. Ginny's content, smiling expression as they floated together, hands linked, their everythinglinked.

It was that glorious sunny afternoon, he then realised, that they had spent at the beach with Teddy, during the summer before the misery surrounding the Elder Wand had kicked off.

And as he realised this, he let the rest of the scene wash over him, and he immersed himself in the little details that delighted him: Ginny's laugh, the delicious warmth of the sun, and the utter content of feeling completely ungrounded, unattached to their worries and fears. Heaven and Earth seemed linked together as one at that moment, and the line where the blue sky ended and the sea began blurred.

 _What a shame to lose that_ , he lamented in his head.

But another voice in his head, a voice that sounded eerily like Ginny's, also spoke.

 _Harry Potter!_ It said. He could almost imagine her, with her hands on her hips, her brown eyes blazing with energy. _I'd better not be hearing that anymore! After all that we have been through, are you really going to lay down and accept it here?_

Harry feebly kicked his legs. And again. But the scene, the feeling of floating weightlessly under the brilliant blue sky, it didn't leave him. And he kicked his legs again, and waved his arms, and he felt himself lifting upwards. He kicked off his heavy, water-soaked jeans, his underwear, and ripped the constricting shirt from him as well, until he had nothing on him but his wand in his hand.

And all the while he swam up. The pressure felt less and less. He didn't even feel the gaping wounds Yaxley had inflicted on him, totally immersed as he was in that glorious, burdenless memory.

* * *

Ginny paced up and down the edge of the water, watching, peering, for any sign. She still considered jumping in herself, but she didn't know where to begin looking. She didn't want them both to be lost out at sea.

But Harry was out there, she didn't doubt about that. Neither did she doubt that he was still alive, although she didn't understand why or how. But the conviction was too strong for her to question it. And so she stayed. And waited… and waited… and stared until the sea and sky seemed to be blurring into one before her eyes.

Minutes, seconds, hours, she had lost track of time.

And then she saw it. Far, far away from her, a head appeared, breached the surface. She jumped in excitement and smothered a scream. She made to kick off her shoes and jump in, and then changed her mind again, several times over. In the end, in her giddy excitement, she ripped the wand from her pocket, pointed it proudly up at the night sky, and summoned the strongest light that she was capable of.

* * *

Harry's vision fitted between the bright, summery sky and the grey surface of the water that got nearer and nearer, until finally, _finally_ , he came up.

His soaring hopes were dashed, though, when he looked around and saw nothing but the black night sky and wave after wave looming over him.

But this new despair was put out before it could settle in, when an unbelievably bright light flared up in front of him. He squinted his eyes and saw her. There, basking in her own light, the beach around her illuminated so brightly that it could just as well have been the middle of the day, she stood. Her vibrant red hair was unmistakable as it fluttered in the strong wind.

His heart soared. He called her name and, in his clumsiness, he swallowed a dose of sea water.

But he was unperturbed and he finally set off, swimming as fast as he could towards her, towards his beacon in the night. He got closer and closer, and saw more and more of her, and heard her scream his name. Eventually, without ever dousing the light, she forewent her position and ran into the sea.

His feet found sand, then, and he stood up just as they met there in the surf, the stars that twinkled above temporarily crowded out by Ginny's light.

"Ginny," Harry croaked, and he fell into her arms.

"Careful," she breathed. All strength that he had felt when he'd swam back to her, now left him. It was as if reality set in once more, and he was suddenly aware again of his aching, wounded body.

"You're hurt," Ginny said, her voice cracking.

"S'ok," Harry said. "You're here."

Ginny emitted something in between a sob and a laugh. Somehow, with their combined struggling efforts, they made it to dry shore.

"I've missed you," he mumbled as they stumbled over the sand.

"Oh, Harry," Ginny sobbed. He felt his throat constrict when he heard the grief in her voice. "You're here now. I'm here. C'mon, let's sit down now."

She plopped down onto the sand, and Harry fell down with her, his head resting in her lap. He pulled his legs in, and felt her soft hands stroking his wet hair.

"I'm so tired," he wheezed.

"Shh," she soothed him. "It's over now, I've got you. You can close your eyes."

To Harry, that sounded like an excellent idea. But there was one more thing, burning inside him, that he wanted to say. He turned up to her once more. Tears leaked from her eyes and streamed down her face, and Harry realised with a start that he himself was crying as well.

"D'you remember that one summer afternoon we had at sea?" he mumbled. "Almost two years ago?"

She nodded and bit her lip, her face contorted as she cried.

"I meant what I said there," he said. He tried to smile and reached up to capture her hand in his. "I still do."

Ginny closed her eyes, leaned down and pressed her lips to his forehead. "Me too," she whispered.

His eyelids drifted shut, and consciousness left him.


	17. Chapter 16

A vision flittered before Harry of a tidy bed, a wooden ceiling, and light filtering in from a window. For one sickening moment, he was sure that he was back in Anoushka's shack. His stomach lurched, he breathed in sharply and veered up.

But several things were not as they first seemed. The walls weren't made of rough oak wood planks and white stucco but were panelled with a vibrant yellowish-brown wood. The bedsheets were scarlet and tucked in so tightly that he found it hard to lift up his arms. And next to his bed sat Ginny.

He was home.

Ginny had noticed him waking up and seen that he was distressed. She shot up from her chair and approached him. "Easy, Harry, it's okay," she sussed, sitting down on the mattress next to him. "Oh, it's so good to see you finally awake!"

Harry's brain was still catching up. "Ginny," he breathed. He reached out to touch her hair. It was real, and soft. She gave a soft, almost inaudible sigh at the touch. "For one moment I thought…"

"That I wasn't real?" she asked softly. "I've been wondering the same thing ever since we brought you here."

"We're in Grimmauld Place, aren't we?" he asked, looking up to meet her eyes. He needed to be sure…

"We are," she said, a smile tugging at her lips. "You're home."

Harry leaned back, and all tension left his body. "I'd given up hope that this day would come," he said.

There was a pause. There were so many things he had to tell her, ask her… It was overwhelming. He had no idea where to start.

"So," Ginny said hesitantly. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I'm not really awake," he replied. He looked up at her. "How long have I been here?"

"Three days," she said. That was when Harry started to notice the rings under her eyes and how short and uneven her fingernails were.

"Wow." He swallowed. "Am I that hurt?"

"You were." She sighed, and Harry heard a hint of a sob in there. "It was… I had to call Andromeda."

"Oh." Andromeda, Teddy's grandmother and caretaker, was also a fairly good Healer. "I was stabbed, wasn't I?"

"You were." She paused. "She said you had bruises, cuts and scratch marks all over you. She said it was as if you'd fought a wild beast. And your hand was broken and poorly healed. Harry…"

"I haven't been at a beach resort all this time," he said.

"I didn't think you were." Her lips twitched. "Remember that holiday in Spain?"

"Yeah…" he snorted. "Never again. We should have seen it coming, though… No Quidditch pitch…"

Ginny smiled, but it disappeared quickly again. "Do you want to tell me what happened?" she asked.

Harry sighed and looked back at the ceiling.

"If you'd rather not, then I understand. You've clearly been through a lot, and you're only just awake–"

"No," he interjected. He knew now where he could start: simply by telling her everything, and this time he would hold nothing back from her. Not anymore. Nothing but the naked truth could suffice now. "I kept secrets before," he said. "No more." She grimaced, and nodded.

He didn't start at the point where he'd run away, but far earlier, at that May day where they had crashed a car into the Black Lake and barely survived. Ginny sat down on the edge of the bed as he kept talking. He told her of the water goddess that lived there, how he'd had no choice but to take the Elder Wand and heal Ginny's grievous wounds. He went on to tell her how he'd kept it hidden on his forearm, how he started experimenting with it.

"The guilt of not telling you…" he said. "Not a day went by where I didn't hate myself for what I was doing. I have no excuses, Gin."

Ginny, who had listened silently until now, opened her mouth. "Was it the Wand?"

"What do you mean?"

"I've read a lot about the Elder Wand," she said. "Lots of accounts said it affected the mind of the person who carried it. Kind of like…" she hesitated. "Kind of like the diary."

Harry saw the tension in her shoulders and the haunted look in her eyes. She'd struggled with this idea that the Wand and the diary were alike for a long time, he realised.

"I… I don't know," he said. "I'm being completely honest with you, Ginny. Where did the influence of that Wand end, and where did my own decisions begin? I want to tell you that it was all the Elder Wand's doing, and that I was just a passenger for those months… But…"

Ginny averted her gaze.

"I know that feeling," she whispered, and he had to strain his ears to understand what she was saying. "I'd struggled with that as well, especially in my second year."

"But you blacked out when Tom made you do those things–"

"So?" she said, meeting his eyes. "That doesn't change that it had been my own body doing those things, Harry. My own two hands strangled those roosters and wrote those messages on the walls. My own voice commanded the Basilisk and set it loose on the school. My own two legs carried me to the Chamber of Secrets to offer my soul to Tom." Her eyes glittered, but her expression hardly changed. "Yes, I was unconscious at the time. But does my own self end there? Aren't my hands and the rest of my body just as much part of me as my soul? Was it not me who kept writing in the diary long after I began to realise that there was something terribly wrong about it?"

"But–"

"No. I've carried this thought around for twenty years now. You can't fix it. The only thing that helped me, is that I vowed to never let this happen to me again."

"I…" he began. "I didn't know you still felt so strongly about that."

"That was the intention."

There was a pregnant pause.

"About the Elder Wand," he then said, and he saw some of the tension leave Ginny's shoulders. "It felt heavy on my arm. And cold on my skin. And I felt it more deeply than that, as if… as if it had latched onto my soul. That it directed me to where it wanted to go. Sometimes I felt an urge to use it as well. When someone's back was turned, all defenceless… When I was angry at someone and wanted them to feel pain…" he grimaced. "But it was subtle, and I could control those urges at least. Until recently, I would have said that its influence on me ended there. But Yaxley…" He paused, and a stab of panic shot through him.

"Yaxley!" he called, and he sat upright. "Yaxley has the Elder Wand, Ginny! And–"

"Stop it," Ginny interrupted him. She put her hand against his chest and pushed him back down onto his back. "You're only just awake, and if Andy saw that I've kept you awake all this time, she'd skin me alive."  
"But–"  
"No. Later. We will talk about it, but not yet."

He clamped his mouth shut.

"Better. What did you want to say before?"

Harry thought back to his train of thought. "Right. When Yaxley took the Elder Wand from me, after he stabbed me, it recognised him as its new carrier. And I felt it disconnect from me, but something funny happened to him. I can't really explain it, but it was like something had changed inside him. Like something else had taken over." He rubbed his face. "So where does that leave us?" He spread his arms to show her how clueless he was.

"So during that time where you started experimenting with the Elder Wand…"

"The murders started, and there was more and more tension. From Kingsley, from the press, from simply the desire to catch the bastard…" He continued to explain the catastrophically failed attempt at luring Yaxley in to arrest him, the uncertainty following it until Harry stumbled across Xenophilius Lovegood's dead body, and the hectic events that followed that discovery, which lead to the fateful happenings inside the Forbidden Forest. Harry's hands trembled more and more as he approached that part of the story.

"… Teddy and I were there, together, in that clearing, and I was sure that Yaxley was watching us. And then I heard something behind me, a footstep, leaves rushing…" He balled his fists and squeezed the bedsheets. He looked up at Ginny and felt tears spring into his eyes. "Before I knew it, I had fired that curse… And then I saw what I'd done…" He broke off and bit his lip to stifle a sob. He felt Ginny's soft caress on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off. "I wanted to kill myself," he said, dodging her gaze as tears streaked down his face. The words were out. "When I was running away through the forest, I kept seeing her before me, lying there… bleeding so, so heavily from her stomach."

He heard Ginny stand up and thought that she was leaving him. But then she circled around the bed and sank down next to him, on the vacant side. She slipped under the blanket and wrapped her arms around him.

"Come here," she whispered. "Come, turn around…" He turned on his side to face her, and she pulled him close. He closed his eyes and felt her warmth on his skin.

"She's okay," she said, stroking the back of his head. "She gave birth to a beautiful girl called Rose. She and Ron love her very much. Everyone loves her. She's beautiful and neither her nor her mum have any lasting injuries from it."

"They won't want to see me ever again," he whispered feebly. "And I deserve it."

"You're wrong," she said. Harry opened his eyes and tried to squirm from her grasp, but she was too strong. "Look at me, Harry," she said.

"Don't lie to me," he rasped. "You all hate me for what I've done. I know you lot. Ron must've talked about killing me with his bare hands millions of times, as well as your other brothers. And Hermione wants to hex me until I'm in St Mungo's, next to Lockhart."

Ginny chewed on her tongue as they held eye contact. Then she sighed. "Alright," she said. "Yes, we were talking about that. Yes, Ron wanted to strangle you, and Hermione did want to hex you."

"And you–"

"Let me finish," she snapped. "We _used to_ talk about that. But that lessened with time, especially after Hemione healed and once Rose was born. And do _not_ talk like that about Hermione wanting to hex you into a bed next to Lockhart. We're _family_ , Harry, and we forgive each other."

"You don't know half of what I've done," Harry stubbornly said.

"Then tell me!" she urged. "Stop assuming how I'll react. It'll eat you up if you don't."

Harry glared at her, but he knew that she was right. He rubbed his eyes, and then told her what happened after, from his travels south, past the Yaxley Mansion, to a strange urge to go west, to Liverpool. Then he arrived at Belfast. Harry tried to pull himself from Ginny's grasp again, but she refused to let him go. And thus he looked down, up, anywhere but at her as he described Damien, how he'd tricked Harry into the gang, and what Harry was up to once he was violently initiated into the Buckriders.

"I've smuggled drugs across the city, Ginny," he said. "I've collected illegal potions and ingredients, I've collected money from hopeless addicts and then spent it on things that helped the Buckriders even more. I even bought a stupid harp for some old man who lived there, with the money that we'd earnt from those poor people."  
"And what would have happened if you'd refused?"

Harry clenched his jaw, then replied. "I would have been murdered by Damien. I suppose you're right. Speaking of Damien…" And he went on to explain Yaxley's sudden appearance, followed by Lydia's revelations and the hope they found together, leading to his fight with Damien and subsequent escape.

"But she never turned up on the ferry," he said. "Lydia. She knew there was a chance that could happen. She carried her broom on her, but still…" he bit his lip.

Ginny had grown more silent. Where she used to ask some questions here and there before, the past fifteen or so minutes she was completely quiet.

However, much he enjoyed her warmth pressed up against him in her embrace, it did get quite uncomfortable. They'd been lying next to each other, occasionally seeking eye contact, but otherwise staring at the ceiling as Harry talked and talked. His throat started to get sore, but now that he had started, he found that he was unable to stop. It was like ripping off a bandage, he thought. But the visions that he had been so anxious about all this time; of Ginny shouting at him, throwing him out of the house again… None of that happened and it strengthened him to continue, even though he already dreaded where the story was going.

"I don't even know how long ago this happened," he continued. "It was in autumn, but it must be somewhere in Spring now, mustn't it?"

"It's April 15th," Ginny said in a soft voice. "You've lost track of time since? And why didn't you come here immediately once you were in England again?"

"I had no money," he said. "And I wasn't about to use the Elder Wand. I figured I'd just walk south instead. But there was something… I can't really explain it, but as I was walking, I went more west than south, but I was so far gone that I just let it happen. It was almost as if my legs had detached from my brain. Had I known where they were taking me…" he shook his head and broke off as the memories rose up in him together with a wave of nausea.

He felt Ginny's hand slip into his, and she scooted closer to him.  
"Is it bad?"

Harry turned to her and nodded, averting his gaze.

Ginny didn't reply. For a long time they simply lay still, hand in hand. He felt a surge of gratefulness that she didn't push him on, that she allowed him to keep his own tempo and only talk once he was ready for it. That strong emotion, their joined hands, and simply the fact that she was there, next to him, all those things he felt mixed into one inside him, like different kinds of warm honey being stirred together in one pot. His heart swelled, and as he breathed in deeply, he knew that he was ready to continue.

He spared no detail. From the feeling of the leeches sucking him dry, to every touch he'd had to endure of Anoushka. But he saved the revelation of her true motives to the end.

"She was going to slaughter me there," he whispered after he'd reached the end of their fight. Ginny's grip on his hand had tightened more and more until it hurt, but he needed it. He needed that clear reminder that it was over now, that he was home. "Twice, she was about to chop my head off and… and…" His throat threatened to constrict from the raw emotions, but he needed to go on, to tell her everything so that she understood, so that they could finally be on equal footing again. The sunlight shining in through the window had moved considerably on the wall by the time he had arrived at the interrogation with the two policemen.

"I recognised the necklace on the picture that they showed me of her. It was a strange rock with these red dots of gem. I'd held that thing in my hand in Anoushka's shack. It was right there, on top of a large pile of all sorts of things."

He knew that she had connected the dots when her face contorted in disgust.

"All the meat that she'd been feeding you…" she said. Her skin turned faintly green. "That she fed you to fatten you up… How big did you say that pile of trinkets was?"

"Too big." He swallowed. "The policemen were talking about how many people had disappeared here as well over the years. So you know what happened to all of them."

"But you killed her," Ginny said, her voice stronger than before. "You've put a stop to it, right?"

"I don't know," he said. "I don't know where Anoushka came from, how old she was, how she ended up there… Nothing! Yes, I killed her, but who's to say it ends there? Was she a person, or maybe a part of that forest? Does that kind of thing even exist? I don't know!"

Another pause.

"Either way, I doubt I could ever find that hut ever again. Not that I ever want to go back there."

Harry turned to his side and found Ginny looking at him as she was lying on her back.

"So then I was placed in a cell, and a while later Yaxley shows up, giving me the choice to either go with him, or get arrested by the Ministry," he said, continuing the story. "We went to his manor. The same manor where I had those nightmares I told you about earlier. Once we were in there, it suddenly clicked in me, that he watched his father die right before him… and when I looked back at Yaxley, I didn't see the Death Eater and mass murderer, but that same small boy. And Yaxley stabbed me. I lost consciousness, and when I woke up, we were out at sea. Once we were far out enough, he chucked me over the edge."

"And then…"

"A miracle happened," he said, smiling. He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb and she scooted closer. They didn't need words to understand how it had happened that Harry managed to get back to shore. He was reminded of the Department of Mysteries, of the door that was always locked, behind which, Dumbledore had told him, the Unspeakables had stored away the most terrible and incomprehensible power in the universe: love.

And he would never forget even the smallest detail of his swim back to shore, guided by Ginny's light, how the horizon line between Heaven and Earth seemed to have been blurred that night to allow for the impossible to happen. Somewhere in that musing, he felt his eyelids start to droop. Ginny came even closer and laid her head on his shoulder. He breathed in deeply, smelling her flowery scent. Whatever came tomorrow, or the day after, or a lifetime later, could come. But this moment could never be taken away from them.

* * *

Harry woke up the next day feeling like he'd lost an enormous weight that he had been carrying around. Telling Ginny everything, and really every single thing, had done him more good than he could have hoped for. He almost wanted to disentangle himself from her warm embrace and get up.

Just as he thought about that, Ginny also began to stir next to him, and she lifted up her head, still looking groggy. She blinked lazily, and then her gaze softened.

"Morning," Harry said in a low voice. "Or, at least I think it's morning."

Ginny giggled and Harry's stomach took that moment to grumble loudly.

"Want to get up?" he asked her.

"Do you?"

"Not if you stay cuddled up next to me like that."

"Mmm, as comfortable as this is, we really should get out of bed. I have to pee."

"Yeah, best not to do that here."

"Unless you're feeling kinky?" Ginny asked, raising one eyebrow. "Oh, just kidding!" she continued when Harry made a retching sound.

When he arrived in the downstairs kitchen a short while later, a mixture of emotions greeted him. It was, for a moment, as if nothing had happened, as if it was just another day where he and Ginny woke up together to go to work.

But there were other memories attached to the room, which had been fundamentally refurbished not too soon after the War. For instance, he remembered leaning against that stove when Ginny had broken up with him, now probably around a decade ago. And he distinctly remembered smashing a porcelain plate next to the dining table when he had first been able to use the Elder Wand.

Ginny arrived in the kitchen behind him and brushed her hand against his back as she passed.

"Tea and toast?" she asked. They were both still dressed in their pyjamas, and the homely sight of her walking up to the counter to grab a kettle and tea bags had the magical effect of driving away those memories instantly. He made to join her at the counter, but she pushed him back to the dining table. "No, you sit down, Harry. Andy said no strenuous activities for at least three days."

As Harry sat down in one of the chairs, he cleared his throat. "Erm – so how have things been here?"

"Not as spectacular," she said, tapping the kettle with her wand to start the boiling. "Of course, it was quite hectic right after you…" she trailed off momentarily, but then resumed, and told him about Hermione's healing process, and then her own attempts at finding him. She, like Harry, did not hold back on the details, and the more she described her and Craig's searches all over Britain, the more he felt a warmth in him spread out that had nothing to do with the tea she'd given him.

He was about to take the toast when grabbed his hand to stop him.

"You've got to take a potion," she said. She pulled out her wand, waved it, and a bottle containing a dark-red coloured potion zoomed into the room from upstairs. "Three times a day, before every meal."

Harry sighed. "I take it it's awful?" he asked. He tilted the bottle sideways and to his dismay he saw that it was barely fluid.

"Shouldn't have gotten your oesophagus cut open, then," Ginny said. She summoned a spoon and took the potion from his hands. They watched, both transfixed, as the mixture blobbed out of the glass container in thick, slow waves.

"Well, then – open up, you," Ginny said with an irritating smile on her face and shoving the spoon in the direction of his mouth.

"I can do it myself, thanks," he snapped, eyeing the spoon warily.

"Don't be silly."

"Ginny, I'd rather not…" Harry said, pausing to find his words as he stared cross-eyed at the spoon hovering close to his mouth, "be force-fed anything that looks like blood or meat."

Ginny's shoulders sagged. "Oh."

"Sorry."

"S'ok." He took the spoon from her limp hand and downed it before he could think better of it. He didn't know what was worse: the warm, iron-rich taste or the feeling of the congealed mass sliding down his throat.

"Anyway," he said after he quickly downed the rest of his tea. "What about the others?"

He pulled a loose note that had been lying on the table to him, recognising Hermione's handwriting. Despite all of Ginny's assurances just now that Ron and Hermione plus baby were fine, he still felt a pang of guilt in his stomach, followed by trepidation. How would they react when they saw him?

"Oh, I forgot to reply to that note, they wanted to come visit soon," Ginny said as soon as she saw it. Harry's stomach twisted. "Ron and Hermione are going as steady as it could go, you know. Good work-family balance, a nice house in the country, just west of Surrey…" she trailed off, frowning.

"And meanwhile you've been here on your own," Harry filled in for her, guessing where her thoughts had wandered to.

Ginny nodded slowly but didn't meet his eye. Then her expression brightened. "Here, I think you'd appreciate this," she said. She stood up, walked towards the fireplace and grabbed a picture from the shelf on top of the hearth. When she sat back down next to him again, she slid it towards him.

He saw the Harpies' training field, that was surrounded by massive poplar trees, and in and out of the frame shot two people on brooms. One he recognised as Ginny, and the other, if possible was even easier to recognise, as per his bubblegum-pink hair.

"You've…" he began, his gaze switching between her and the picture. "You've managed to get Teddy on a broom?"

"I have!" she beamed. "And next year he's going to try out for the Hufflepuff Quidditch team! I reckon he'll be a solid Keeper, you know."

Harry placed down the picture with trembling hands. "Miracles do exist," he breathed. "But how have you managed this?"

Ginny chewed her tongue. "It's not been easy for him, while you were gone. No, Harry, I can see where your thoughts are going, and it's not helping anyone. Let me finish," she said when she saw him grimace. "He had Andy, of course, and his friends, but he was taking it very hard. I figured he just needed to talk about what happened to someone, so I stepped in. Gradually we started talking about other things as well, like school, and then Quidditch of course. Somewhere during those talks he stopped staring at my chest as well," she added, smirking.

"Ginny Weasley," Harry said in a constrained voice. "You are the most wonderful thing in the whole world." He stood up, she followed suit, and then their lips met. His arms found her waist as hers snaked around his back, her lips were soft against his. He felt her breasts against his chest through their thin pyjamas, his arms travelled from her small waist down to her soft buttocks as he pressed himself eagerly against her…

The fireplace roared to life behind them, and they quickly disentangled to see Ron and Hermione tumble out onto the rug in front of it.

"Ginny!" Hermione called. "You didn't reply to our note, and so…"

But then she saw Harry, and she fell silent. She closed and opened her mouth a few times, and Ron stood completely still beside her.

Harry still had one arm around Ginny, but his previous arousal ebbed away in the blink of an eye and was replaced with the aching pain that had slumbered inside him all this time, now that he saw his two oldest, dearest friends staring at him.

Their eyes fitted between Harry and Ginny, and in that split-second Harry feared that they had never forgiven him.

"Harry Potter," Hermione said. Her voice trembled.

"Hermione…" Harry breathed. His hand magnetically found Ginny's. "Ron…"

But then Hermione crossed the room in a few strides. She paused before him, searched for words but found none, and she fell into his arms.

Harry's throat constrained as he embraced her as well. He heard her whimper as her arms tightened around him, and he was barely aware that tears were falling liberally from his eyes.

"I'm so, so sorry," he sobbed, eyes firmly shut. He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe that she would so readily accept him back again after what he'd done to her. But everything about this felt so real, from her tight embrace to the feeling of a sharp knife slashing straight through his heart as they broke down.

"Shush. You're alive," she whispered in his ear. "You're alive, and that's all we care about."

He curled his hands into fists and squeezed her shirt, and with every teardrop that he shed he felt the despair that had lingered permanently on the edge of his consciousness flow out from him.

"I would have given everything, _everything_ ," he wept, "to reverse what I did that night."

"I know. I know."

Hermione placed her hands on his shoulders and separated them so that she could look at him. He could see that she had shed as many tears as he had. She opened her mouth to say something, but her bottom lip quivered and she fell back into his embrace.

When they let go of each other, Harry's eyes fell on Ron. He stood beside them, his arms hanging loosely, his jaw clenched and his neck was red as ever.

Words weren't needed. They embraced and slapped each other's backs so hard that it was as if they were trying to injure each other.

"Don't ever do that again," Ron said gruffly.

"I've learnt my lesson."

"You'd better have."

And then they stood there, the three of them, sending watery smiles to each other, but not having the slightest clue what they should say to each other. But it was okay. Everything was alright again as far as Harry concerned.

Ginny had a spring in her step as she darted back to the kitchen. "Two more teas, it is," she said as she set the kettle to work again. "Ron, Hermione, I'm sorry for our state of undress. It's just been such a chaos the past few days that I completely forgot about your note."

"No worries," Hermione said as she dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief.

"Where's Rose, anyway?"

"Mum and Dad are with her," Ron replied as they retreated to the couches and sofas around the fireplace. "It's Sunday, after all."

"They stop by every Sunday," Hermione said, immediately picking up on Harry's slightly dazed look. "Magical transportation is a bit too intense for babies and toddlers. They tend to react very badly to Apparition and Flooing, and sitting on a broom for hours on end is not exactly comfortable for them either."

"What…" Harry began. "What's she like?"

"Rose?" Hermione asked. A smile spread over her face. "She's wonderful, Harry! She's got wispy red hair that curls all over the place…"

"And her mother's face," Ron added. The two turned to each other and shared a sappy look. Harry caught Ginny's eye. She looked away, grinning, and then sat down next to him.

"She has learnt to walk a month or two ago, and since then she's been all over the place, chasing after us wherever we go," Hermione continued.

"She also talks the whole time," Ron took over. Harry's eyes fitted between the two as they took turns to talk to him. The love they showed for their child was plain to see, but it did not help to drive away the nagging knot of guilt that festered in Harry's stomach, no matter how hard he wished he could share in their joy. "It's hilarious, mate, she just keeps blabbing even though she doesn't know any words. All you have to do is look interested at her, say "yeah, that's right" or "really?" every time she takes a breath, and she'll keep it up for hours!"

"She carries her favourite toy around her as well," Hermione said, taking her turn again the moment Ron finished his sentence. "It's a plushie giraffe called Albert that _used to_ ," she emphasised while shooting Ron a withering look,"walk around and make giraffe noises. That was until Ron sat on it."

"Will you let it rest already? Rose loves it, she doesn't care if it walks backwards now and sounds like it's choking."

Harry grinned despite himself. Ron caught his expression and asked: "D'you want to introduce yourself to her?"

"Oh," Harry said, his cheeks feeling very hot all of a sudden. "I couldn't, could I?"

"Why not?"

"Cause this prat thinks he doesn't deserve it," Ginny said softly.

The cosy conversation came to an abrupt halt. The only upside was that Ron and Hermione stopped sending each other lovestruck smiles every other second.

"Harry, I…" Hermione said, breaking the silence. "Of course you can come see her! We're family!"

"She's not… affected by it, then?"

"Not at all," she replied. "And neither am I." She grabbed the underside of her jumper and lifted it up to show him his stomach. Harry clenched his jaw, but there was nothing there that hinted at the curse he'd hit her with.

"Although, since she was born, I haven't really lost that bit of…" Hermione said, looking down as she pinched a bit of skin that hung slightly over her belt.

"You really don't mind?" he asked slowly.

"Really," Ron said.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later they stood ready at the fireplace. When Harry and Ginny had gone upstairs to get dressed, he paused her as soon as they entered the master bedroom.

"I'm not sure about this," he said.

"I understand, Harry, but you've heard them," Ginny said, glancing at his hands, which were shaking. "They're okay with it. The guilt that you feel, that's all in your head, nothing more."

"But I almost killed–"

"And you've said yourself that there's nothing you regret more," Ginny said firmly. "You're not a killer, Harry, and you won't turn into one either as soon as you see Rose. So c'mon, take a shower, get dressed, and then we can put these thoughts of yours behind."

More tears threatened to spill over the edge. He was surprised he even had some left at this point. "You really are amazing," he said.

"I know," she said as she turned to the closet and pulled her pyjama shirt over her head. "But you need to take a shower."

One part of Harry agreed with her, the other was urging him with impatience to take that bra from her hands before she could put it on, and then…

"We're keeping tonight free of any visitors," he said.

Ginny turned to him as she was strapping up her bra. She had that blazing look in her eye that he loved so much. "Agreed," she said, dead serious. For a moment they stood frozen, staring at each other.

"Shower," Harry said, and he scampered out of the room before things got out of hand.

But when he stepped into the bathroom, he saw his own reflection for the first time in what seemed like ages, and his heart felt like he'd accidentally skipped a step.

 _How could Ginny ever look at me that way while I look like this?_ His beard had gotten severely out of control, as had his hair. The tips still had a brown colour to them, from the hair dye that he'd used in Belfast. He also still wore those contacts Damien had bought for him. When he took a good whiff, he still faintly smelt sea water.

He went back into his bedroom for a moment to grab his wand, and then set to work, cutting off his beard and excess hair. He let the magical razor blade that Bill and Fleur had given him for his seventeenth' birthday do the last touches.

He gazed in the mirror after a short shower and thought himself a new man: gone were the beard and the brown hair dye, though the grey patches mixed in with in his dark hair could not be erased. It was a shame, too, that he only had an old, battered spare pair of glasses which had been gathering dust in Grimmauld place for several years. But he felt it was preferable to be able to see _and_ have his true eye colour back.

"Much better," Ginny grinned when he came into the bedroom again.

"Thanks. Can't make the wrong impression to Rose, can I?"

"I don't know about that, you know," Ginny said, looking thoughtful. "This one time George visited, he was disguised with long white hair and beard, pretending to her that he was her long-lost great-granddad. I think she still misses him."

"I'm not growing a beard like that again," he said.

"No, you're not," she said, her firm tone hinting that he didn't really have a choice in this matter anyway.

And then they went downstairs and Flooed to Ron and Hermione's house, Harry last.

"We've talked to Mum and Dad," Ron said before stepping into the fireplace. "So don't worry about giving them a heart attack."

A minute later, Harry tumbled out onto a wooden floor. He barely had time to take in his surroundings before he was engulfed in a hug by Mrs Weasley, and his vision was filled with a lot of greying red hair.

"Harry Potter," she said, appraising him when they separated. "You've left us for so long only one time before…" Harry's insides squirmed guiltily. "But no matter what happens, dear, we'll always welcome you back with open arms."

"I'm not planning to do a stunt like this ever again," Harry said, finding it hard to smile at her. But she seemed to understand, for she patted his cheek. And then Mr Weasley approached him and embraced him as well.

"It's good to have you back, son," he said. He also cast a glance up and down Harry, once or twice lingering on his grey patches. "The Ministry's still searching for you."

"I know," Harry said.

"It's been hard for us to know what has really been going on," he continued, gazing intently at Harry. "Kingsley arrested, an arrest warrant for you… We weren't quite sure if it was time to reform the Order of the Phoenix–"

"Arthur!" Mrs Weasley warned him "There are no Aurors here, and Harry has just come back. Now's not the time for this."

Harry's stomach felt as though he'd just drank firewhisky, and he smiled in gratitude at Mrs Weasley. Plans of reconciliation had been vague in his mind while on the run, and were always marred by the thought of rejection. But those doubts were now finally starting to

"Of course," Mr Weasley said. "We'll talk about this soon, then."

Harry nodded. "Very soon. I've, erm… got a lot to tell you."

"But not now, dear," Mrs Weasley said. "We've heard a little, but it's for another time. Come, let's… let's sit down."

And then Harry was able to look around the house. The many books adorning the walls suggested that Hermione had the most say in the decoration. There was one small window to his right, with light red curtains hanging next to it. The small room was filled with a couch and sofas, all directed towards the fireplace. There was a child's seat next to the couch. And from the door opposite Harry walked in Hermione, a child balanced on her arm, who was looking away from him, back to where they came from. She had one hand stuffed in her mouth, and was slowly nibbling on the tiny fist.

"Look, Rosie," Hermione said softly, her head close to her. She pulled the hand from her mouth with a soft 'pop'. "That man right there? No, not Grandpa Arthur, look there!" Rose then turned to Harry and regarded him curiously with hazel brown eyes. "That's Uncle Harry."

Hermione set her on the wooden floor, and carefully let go when she looked stable enough. Harry was keenly aware of the Weasleys' eyes on the procession.

"Want to go say hi to him, Rosie?" Hermione asked. "Show him what you've learnt?"

But Rose's attention seemed to be divided between him and the room where she'd came from.

"I left Albert in the kitchen," Hermione said, looking troubled. "Don't worry, Harry, she's usually a bit shy when meeting new…"

But then Rose turned back to Harry, and carefully, almost toppling over twice, she crossed the room towards him. Harry kneeled down and opened his arms for her.

"Hello Rose," he said when she reached him. He hugged her lightly and rubbed her head. Their eyes met, Rose still looking up at him, her eyes filled with curiosity. "You're beautiful, aren't you?"

She babbled a short but incomprehensible reply, and then extended her tiny hands to his face. Harry leaned down, and she tugged the slightly broken old glasses from his face.

"Rosie," Ron said warningly, but Harry didn't mind.

"Ugly thing, isn't it?" he asked her as she jabbed at one of the lenses. "Yeah, I don't like it either. I'll need it back though, sadly." He gently pulled it from her grasp again. Rose's gaze followed his movements. Then she stuck her arm back in her mouth, and then turned back to her mother when she reappeared holding Albert, the smiling plushie giraffe.

"Go on," Harry said softly to her. "Go get Albert."

Rose babbled something that vaguely could sound like "Albie", and she stumbled back to Hermione. She met her toy halfway there, and she clutched her small fist around Albert, who was shuffling backward, emitting disturbing choking and retching noises as if it were desperately gasping for breath. When Harry looked up at the other people in the room, he was keenly aware of the wetness in his eyes. He quickly wiped it away but couldn't help but join in their infectious laughter.

* * *

"That was nice," Harry said that evening, when he and Ginny returned from Ron and Hermione's place.

"What did I tell you?" Ginny said in amusement. She quickly set to work washing the few dishes from earlier that day. Harry leaned against the table and watched her at work. "You had nothing to worry about."

"Yeah," he said, his gaze becoming unfocused for a moment as he considered how many hours of sleep he had lost over these worries.

"It's all lost sleep for nothing," she continued, once again displaying her uncanny ability to know what he was thinking about. "Not that you should beat yourself up over that as well, but…" She stacked the clean and dried plates up and with a flick of her wand she sent them to their place in the cupboard.

"It's not good to let the stress have that much power over you," Harry finished for her.

"Exactly."

"They seem happy, don't they? Ron and Hermione?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, they really are," Ginny said. Her grip on her wand slacked for a moment, and the glasses, which were washing itself, fell still for a moment. "Having Rose really did them good. They've settled into their parent roles really well. That helped, as well as Ron quitting his Auror job." There was a wistful tone in her voice.

"I want to see Teddy soon," Harry said, hoping to change the subject.

"Definitely. He's in Hogwarts, though, and his exams are coming up, so it'll probably be a while before we can see him."

"When's the next Hogsmeade weekend?"

"After the exams. I think it's the tenth of June, but I'll have to check."

"Thanks." He wanted to say to her that he would be going to Hogwarts soon again, but he didn't want a reminder of the tasks that lay ahead of them to tarnish the end of what had truly been a marvellous day. Apart from his short conversation with Mr Weasley, they hadn't mentioned Lord Castlereagh, the Ministry, or Yaxley at all, and he intended to keep it that way just a little longer.

Ginny washed her hands and dried them off, and she turned to Harry with a glint in her eye. He was again

"We said we'd keep tonight for ourselves, didn't we?" she asked.

Harry quirked an eyebrow. "Why, Miss Weasley, I do believe we did."

"Then we'd better make use of that."

She only just finished that sentence before they reached each other, and their lips met. His hands found her waist, and he felt her hands run through his untidy hair.

"I like it shorter," she whispered, breaking their kiss for a moment.

Harry pulled back. "You did say you preferred girth."

He gasped as her grip on his hair tightened.

"Shall we move this upstairs?"

"Yes," Harry said, his teeth clenched. "And could you…" her grip slacked a bit. "Thanks."

"One thing, though," she said in a low voice as they walked upstairs. His hand had already gravitated towards her bum, and he relished in kneading her soft, warm buttocks. "Andy specifically told me that you can do no strenuous activities."

"Mm, I was planning on a few of those, though," Harry murmured. They reached the top step. He squeezed her bum. "But what Andy doesn't know won't hurt her."

They reached the door to the master bedroom. The eager anticipation had become more and more intense, and Harry yearned to take off his pants, to free his restrained erection…

Ginny opened the door and pushed him inside.

"I take my role as Healer very seriously, you know," she murmured, sliding her finger from his jaw, down to his neck and to his chest. "You've been so awfully injured…"

"What do you propose?" Harry breathed, taking his eyes of her hand, which had started fiddling with the buttons of his shirt, to meet her smouldering gaze.

Ginny pushed him backward, further into the room, until his legs met the bed.

"I propose you lay down," she said, ripping his shirt open more and raking her hands over the exposed skin, "… and let Healer Weasley do her thing."


	18. Chapter 17

Their brief – but blissful – respite from everyday life came to an end the next morning. Ginny and Harry, still glowing in the aftermath of what had truly been a spectacular night, sat down for breakfast, and Ginny opened the Daily Prophet and began reading.

"No word yet on what happened to you," she commented. "You'd think the Ministry would report on your arrest by those Muggle policemen, right?"

"Then they'd have to explain that I got away as well," Harry said after swallowing a mouthful of scrambled eggs. "Wouldn't look too good for Lord Castlereagh. By the way, did Craig and the others manage to cover up what really happened?"

"Oh yeah," Ginny said. "They made up an excuse for not seeing the notification of your arrest. Something about responding to a pub fight in Manchester that got out of hand and involved several wizards. Robards was puzzled that the fax machine was an hour late in reporting your arrest, but he's blaming the charms and not his Aurors."

"Excellent. But no sign of Yaxley still, right?"

"Not a word," she said. "But that doesn't really mean anything, seeing as he now has your Invisibility Cloak. He could be anywhere."

"Right," Harry muttered, suddenly much less interested in his breakfast. "We'll have to be on our toes at all times now. I don't think we can afford going out on our own either."

"You're probably right. I'll need to get back to Quidditch practice soon, though. I've been on sick leave for half a week now, but we'll need to keep up an illusion of normalcy. You're still wanted for that investigation into Auror practices."

"I know," Harry said. Her comments on work brought him up short as he realised how far removed from normal day-to-day life he'd really been. "We'll need to figure out how to solve that. At least we have incriminating evidence against Lord Castlereagh, but I'm not sure how to use that yet."

"We'll figure something out."

"I'll also need new glasses. I hate these."

"We can do that today. Muggle London should be sufficiently busy to avoid any Auror attention."

"I also want to go to Hogwarts," he said.

Ginny froze, her hand holding her fork hovering in mid-air.

"Why?" she asked, laying the fork back down on her plate.

"Cause I know what Yaxley's really after now." He rubbed the stubble on his chin. "He wants to become the Master of Death because he thinks it will give him the power he needs to "punish" the Ministry for what they did to his father. And I think he's particularly keen on the Resurrection Stone as well because of his father. So I want to find out if it's still there where I left it in the Forbidden Forest."

"That'll have to wait," Ginny said. "You can't just waltz into Hogwarts while the Ministry is still looking for you."

"Right."

A pause.

"So then Lord Castlereagh is our first priority."

"Your first priority is finishing your breakfast before it's cold," Ginny said, pointing at his plate. "Then we'll get you new glasses, and then we'll talk to Dad like we promised."

"Good plan."

Ginny paused, and then laid her small hand on top of his. "We'll be okay," she said, squeezing his hand. "I just know it. We'll get through this, love."

Harry found himself smiling widely at her. Their relationship still had a long way to go, but he truly felt like telling her everything, every single detail he remembered, had done a lot to mend what had been broken between them.

It needed time. And they were both prepared to give it that.

* * *

Their trip to the optician went by without a hitch. They found themselves constantly looking over their shoulder for any sign of the Ministry or Yaxley, but it proved to be unnecessary. Harry picked out glasses that looked a lot like the thin, round ones that he used to wear, and after being told that they would be ready in a week at most, they went home again.

An owl was waiting for them on the dining table.

"That's Humboldt!" Ginny exclaimed. "Luna's owl," she added when she saw Harry's questioning look. "She got him not long after her father…"

"Right."

"What have you got for me?" she asked softly, stroking the brown owl's feathers. Humboldt hooted in appreciation and stuck out his leg. Ginny untied the note and read its contents.

"Luna wants to see us," she said. "But there's no other information. Strange, normally she just pops over via Floo."

"It would be lovely to see her again," Harry said. "But is it definitely her handwriting?"

"Yeah, it is. Here, look." And she stuck the note out to him.

_Ginny and Harry,_

_Come see me at the Rookery as soon as possible._

_Luna._

"Yeah, that's short," Harry commented. "Are we sure she hasn't been put under the Imperius Curse? Remember Crouch and the letters he sent to Percy?"

"Yaxley would be up for that, yeah," Ginny said. Fear reflected in her eyes. "All the more reason to see her immediately, right?"

"Yeah, but–"

"I'll just stick my head through the fireplace and look around, okay?" Ginny interrupted him. "If there's anything wrong, I'll pull back immediately."

Harry shuffled his feet and clenched his jaw. "I suppose I can't just show my face everywhere without making sure there are no Aurors there," he said. He sighed. "Alright, but be careful."

Ginny made her way to the fireplace and threw a pinch of Floo powder in it. She kneeled in front of it and then stuck her head through.

Harry stood there, fiddling his wand in anxiety, ready to pull her back by her legs at the first sign of danger…

But then she pulled her head back from the fire and looked back at him, her eyes twinkling as she smiled at him. "It's okay," she said. "And there's someone here who wants to see you."

"Who is it?" Harry asked. "Apart from Luna?"

"Just come and see," she said with a giddy tone in her voice.

They stepped through the fireplace and into the Lovegood home, curiosity burning inside Harry.

He looked around the round room, noticing how much more tidy the kitchen area looked than the last time he'd been here, when he heard Luna's voice drift down, calling them to come upstairs.

Harry exchanged a glance with Ginny, whose lips quirked.

"After you," she said.

"I'm getting kind of tired of the secrecy, you know," he said in amusement, but he nonetheless ascended the round wrought iron staircase.

Up there, next to the printing press stood Luna. But Harry's attention was shifted to the person next to her.

This woman looked just as bad as Harry must have looked when Ginny found him. Her brown hair was knotted and dirty, her face was gaunt and smudged, her clothes torn in a few places, and her limbs trembled as Luna held her on her feet. He thought he vaguely recognised her, something about her made him ring a bell, but it wasn't until she looked up at him (her eyes were golden-brown now) that he recognised who it was.

"Lydia?" he asked in a small voice as Ginny came up the stairs as well.

"Recognised me without the disguises did you?" she asked. He was shocked at how frail her voice sounded, but nevertheless he rushed forward to wrap his arms around her in a gentle embrace. Luna let go, and Harry braced his legs to support Lydia as she leaned on him now. Her breathing, close to his ear, sounded far too faint.

"C'mon, you need to sit down," he said.

"Yes please," she muttered. "Standing up is a lot harder than I anticipated."

Harry carefully helped her into one of the bright yellow chairs, and then turned to Luna.

"It's been too long," he told his friend as they hugged. He lost count at how many people he had embraced over the last few days, but he didn't mind in the slightest.

They separated again, and Harry glanced from her to Lydia.

"It's so good to see you again," he began hesitatingly. "I thought the worst."

"You too."

"You're Lydia?" Ginny asked.

"In the person," she mumbled, slumping in her chair.

"Harry has told me a bit about you," Ginny continued.

"Fantastic."

"I'll make some tea, I think," Luna said. "No Gurdyroot tea. I've bought green tea," she added when she saw Harry and Ginny's apprehensive expressions.

"You look done in," Harry said, seating himself next to Lydia. "Don't you want to lie down?"

"No, I want to talk to you," she said. She pushed herself up to sit more straight. "A lot has happened, and… Just stay here for a while, please, and I'll explain."

"Don't worry, take all the time you need." He looked up at Ginny, who looked uncertainly at the exchange between the two. "Erm… do you mind if Ginny stays here as well?" he asked.

"Sure," Lydia said without lifting her gaze.

Ginny cocked an eyebrow at Harry before sitting down in one of the chairs as well.

"Where do you want to start, then?" Harry asked. He tentatively reached out to squeeze her limp hand.

"The night of our planned escape is good enough, I suppose." She sighed. She had her hands in her lap and twiddled her fingers nervously. She finally lifted her head and looked up at him. He hid his reaction, but her blue eyes looked like those of a doll rather than a human being. Life, happiness, energy, everything was sucked out of them, leaving two dull brown orbs that regarded him.

"To say that Damien was angry does not begin to describe it," she said. "He was covered in blood and bruises but he didn't care. All he wanted was to find you and kill you. Even Thomas was intimidated by him…" her gaze then focused past him on some scene in her memory, and she shivered. "There was no chance for me to get away. I think Damien suspected something, or maybe he just did it because he knew how much time we'd been spending together. Whatever the reason, he had me paired up with three others at all times while we scoured the city looking for you, or any sign of a broom, Portkey or used Floo. I wasn't even allowed to sleep, unlike the others. And he got angrier and angrier as the night went on and the next day began, and you were still without a trace…"

"But you did escape," Harry said.

"Eventually," she sighed. "When I heard he was looking for me personally to interrogate me, I knew I had to leave quickly. He's not a good Legillimens, but he has his ways to extract the truth from people, and they're not fun. So I made an excuse of going to check up on Gerry, because no one had done so all day. I went to his room, said goodbye to him, blew a hole in the wall, and flew out."

They heard footsteps on the iron stairs, and Luna reappeared with a tray containing for tea cups and some biscuits. She placed it down, kneeled in front of Lydia and gently helped a tea cup into her hands.

"Are your hands still shaking too much, or is this going to be okay for you?" she asked softly.

"I'm fine, thanks," Lydia replied.

For a moment the two women stared at each other, and Harry was struck by a feeling that he was intruding on something. Then Luna stood up again and smiled at him. "Did you teach her that kind of response, Harry, or was she always like this?"

"I claim innocence," Harry said, raising his hands in defence. "So after you flew away, Lydia, what happened then?"

"Lots of running around, basically. I had to be sure that I couldn't be followed. I went to Dublin after a few days and took a ferry across the sea there, because I was pretty sure they were watching the Belfast docks." She took a sip of her tea with trembling hands. Some of it spilled over the shaking cup and onto her hands, but she showed no reaction. "Turns out they had people in Dublin as well. I narrowly escaped them and took a ferry to England, but somehow they managed to alert the police in Liverpool, and I was arrested on the grounds of smuggling drugs. Not that they found anything on me, but that didn't matter, because there's years and years of evidence against me that the Buckriders were more than happy to supply. After a few days I was given to the Belfast police, and it was basically an open-and-shut case, and I was put in jail."

She paused to take another sip. "At this point I was simply waiting to be poisoned or assassinated in jail. I wouldn't have been the first Buckrider to end up like that after trying to run away, you know. There was this one bloke called Norman who was in way over his head, and after joining he decided the gang life wasn't for him, so he tried to leave. He got arrested that same day, convicted of gang activity and smuggling, and a month or so later he was found dead in his cell. Hanged himself was the story, which was probably true, but then again: the police didn't know about the Imperius Curse he was put under." She sighed. "That was the outlook I was waiting for in there."

"But you got away?"

"I did." She looked up, and for the first time he saw a faint trace of amusement in her eyes. "Remember those brooms I bought for us? I had mine still on me, but it was really small due to the charm I'd put on it, and I managed to convince the wardens that it was a personal token from my late father. I didn't have my wand on me, so I couldn't increase the size again, but I hoped that the charm would run out one day. It took a good while, but eventually it did, and so I simply flew away."

She took another sip of her tea before she continued. "I don't know what happened in the prison after I left. I presume the Ministry Obliviated the wardens, or at the very least modified their memories. But I needed to know where to go. I knew your house was under the Fidelius Charm, Harry, so that didn't really leave many places. Only one, to be precise." She and Luna shared another look, and Harry saw a tenderness in Lydia's gaze that he had never seen from her before. "But I couldn't go here straight away, because I didn't want the Buckriders to be able to trace me here. So I've kind of… wandered until I was absolutely sure I was untraceable."

"Thank God that you made it," Harry said. "I feared the worst when you missed the ferry."

"So what happened to you, then?" Lydia said. "I know you got away, otherwise Damien wouldn't have been that furious, but what happened after you got the ferry?"

Harry told her an abridged version of his own wanderings through Britain.

"… And that's why we had to be so careful when Flooing over to you," he concluded. "I'd be thrown in Azkaban, and Ginny as well, if the Ministry caught wind of my whereabouts."

Lydia nodded. The talking seemed to have given her new energy. She sat up straighter, and there was a certain spark in her eyes that was completely absent when they first got here.

"Well then," she said, and she grinned. "I guess then it's time to shake things up, isn't it? I think Lord Castlereagh has enjoyed his position at the top for far too long, if you ask me."

Excitement bubbled up in the pit of his stomach. "Is it time, then?" he asked, matching her grin.

"Oh yes. Erm…" she hesitated, then glanced at Ginny. "Does she…"

"Ginny knows everything," Harry said.

Lydia's eyes sparkled. "See? What did I tell you, you old worrywart? Luna?" she asked, turning to the blonde witch across her. "Are you willing to help us in this?"

"If I wasn't, I wouldn't have taken you in, would I?" Luna said happily. "I'll need both your accounts of that conversation between Lord Castlereagh and Damien, and of the times you've seen Yaxley. If what you said about their interactions with Damien is true, then this should be enough to cause quite a stir."

"Not only that," Lydia said. "After Harry escaped, I saw Lord Castlereagh one more time together with Damien, and they were accompanied by an old man called Gawain Robards."

Harry froze in his chair.

"Robards?" Ginny asked, her voice rising by several notes. "Head Auror Robards? Him too?"

"The very same," Lydia said, her mouth twisting into a smirk. "I don't think they were too concerned with pretensions and privacy in the chaos of Harry disappearing."

"So he's in on it as well," Harry murmured. "Not that I'm surprised, given what things he did during Voldemort's short reign… But this could help us immensely. If the corruption is that widespread, then we've got a lot to clean up. Luna?"

"Yes?" she replied.

"D'you…" he trailed off when she brandished a notebook and self-writing quill. "Erm, yeah, I was going to ask for that," he said, staring as they hovered in front of her.

"We're going to make a lot of people very angry, aren't we?" Ginny asked. The excitement in her voice was palpable, and infectious.

"We are," Luna said. "Harry, Lydia – are you ready?"

"More than ever," he replied, watching as the quill began writing down his words on the pages.

* * *

"We should warn Ron and Hermione," Ginny said to him later that night. They were back under the safety of the wards of Grimmauld Place, sitting side by side on the couch in front of the fire.

His and Lydia's interview with Luna had taken all afternoon, as she asked in detail what Harry had gone through in Belfast, under the thumb of Damien. They had agreed that Harry would be the public source of the story, and that Lydia would remain anonymous. Given her past and the nature in which she had entered the gang, they couldn't risk her going public.

Raking up the memories of what had happened in Belfast was far from a pleasant experience, and Harry was glad that Ginny had come with him. She simply held his hand as he talked about he had been forced to do, but that simple gesture made all the difference in the world.

"I don't know," Harry replied after a long thoughtful silence. Luna had promised them that it would be printed in a special edition of the Quibbler the next day. "Maybe they'll be questioned about it at the Ministry. If they don't know about it in advance, it would give them plausible deniability."

"I don't think they'd be too happy with this surprise, though."

"Good point. But I'd rather have them be angry at us than being interrogated under Veritaserum."

"Right."

Silence dragged on for a while.

"Remember back at Hogwarts, that year with Umbridge?" Harry asked. "I keep thinking of the interview with the Quibbler I did then."

Ginny giggled. "It was beautiful. Remember that Umbridge tried to forbid everyone from reading it, and it only caused the article to become more famous?"

"Here's hoping they'll try something stupid like that this time as well," Harry chuckled.

"We'll see," Ginny said.

* * *

Harry woke up the next morning and was instantly awake and alert. He checked his watch; it was half past six. The Quibbler wouldn't arrive for half an hour yet, but he knew he would not be able to handle lying still until then. He pecked Ginny on her cheek and jumped out to grab a quick shower.

As the water ran over his body, he once again thought about the repercussions that would come today. He didn't know what to expect. He knew what he _wanted_ to happen, of course, which was Lord Castlereagh's resignation, along with the dropping of the charges against himself and Kingsley. But would this interview be able to make shockwaves that big? The Quibbler was no longer the joke that it used to be when Harry was still in school, but still he didn't think the changes would come that easily. But nonetheless, the weight of today was tangible.

The problem was that he had no ways of finding out. He was confined to Grimmauld Place and careful visits to Luna and Ron and Hermione. And he was pretty sure that even leaving the house would become impossible now. The Ministry would know that he was in contact with at least Luna, and that meant that they would renew their search for him. They would probably start to monitor the Floo network a lot more closely.

He was stuck under the Fidelius Charm of Grimmauld place. Just like Sirius had been.

He went downstairs to find an empty kitchen. Hunger wouldn't come to him, so he simply poured himself a glass of water and sat down at the dinner table, waiting for either Ginny or the Quibbler to arrive.

Ginny came first, in her pyjamas, blearily rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Morning," Harry said, taking his eyes off the nearby window.

She mumbled something back, plopped down onto the chair next to him and laid her head on his shoulder.

"Why are mornings so hard?" she sighed as Harry put an arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. "Did the Quibbler arrive yet?"

"No, but it's still a couple minutes to seven," he replied. "It should come at any minute now."

They sat there in silence, Ginny slumped against him as they waited, until a few minutes later they saw a shape appear at the window, and an owl flew in with a rolled up copy of the Quibbler in its claws. It landed in front of them and looked up expectantly. Harry pushed his half-empty glass towards the owl and retrieved the magazine with trembling hands.

The interview contained nothing new, but now that Harry saw it printed out, he began to reconsider what he had said, trying to think of the impression they would make to readers to whom this was new.

"And?" Ginny prodded after he laid the magazine back down onto the table. "Happy?"

He smiled and pecked her on the cheek. "I am, because you're here."

"Merlin's ballsack, Harry, can it get more sappy?" she asked, but her eyes sparkled.

"Sorry, dear," he said in a flat tone. "How can I make it up to you?"

Her lips quirked. "Make me breakfast, and you're forgiven."

* * *

He'd hoped the interview would make an impact, but he didn't expect it to start that very same afternoon already. Just after two o'clock, the Floo flared to life and Lydia tumbled out looking hassled and stressed.

Harry got to his feet immediately and approached her. "Is everything alright?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, sounding a bit distracted. "Yeah… I had to leave the Rookery, though. We had visitors from the Ministry."

"And Luna?" he asked quickly.

"Don't know," she said, her jaw clenched as she looked back at the Floo. "She said she'd come as soon as they were gone."

"As soon as who are gone?" Ginny asked as she entered the living room. "Lydia?" she asked when she saw the woman standing there in front of the fireplace. "Is everything alright?"

"Aurors from the Ministry visited us," she answered. "Quite a lot of them as well. I had to leave before they could see me."

"Come and sit down," Harry said. When she remained standing there, gazing at the fireplace every few moments, he continued. "You can't go back now, you'll only get Luna into trouble."

Lydia scowled at him.

Let's just… let's just have a drink while we're waiting," he said carefully. _"Accio Butterbeer!"_ he caught the three bottles that zoomed towards him and moved back to the dinnertable.

"Not the kind of words I expected from you," Ginny said, one eyebrow raised archly, but she entered the living room proper and placed a hand on Lydia's back, steering her to the dining table. "C'mon. He's right. Luna's a big girl, and she'll be with us soon enough."

Lydia hesitated, but eventually she let herself be coaxed into sitting down with them. Harry made a pot of tea for them all, and then they sat there in silence as they anxiously waited for the fireplace to come to life once again.

"I feel like shit for bringing this onto Luna," Lydia eventually said, breaking through the tension.

"Me too," Harry admitted.

Ginny glanced from one to the other. "She wasn't exactly an unwilling part of this, you know," she said.

"Yes, but still–" Lydia began.

"But nothing!" Ginny cut her off. "And don't you start either, Harry! It's bad enough to deal with one of you blaming yourself all the time, so don't start encouraging each other like this. Luna's going to be fine, and she chose to involve herself in this."

But despite Ginny's assurances, they still kept looking at the fireplace every few seconds, their Butterbeers hardly touched.

But eventually, after an agonising period of time that seemed to drag on forever, the flames turned green, grew larger and larger, and Luna tumbled out of the hearth. She smiled at them, but there was no serene quality to her gaze.

"I don't think they were too happy with the interview," she said.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked as he, Ginny and Lydia got up from their seats as one.

"Oh, I'm fine," she said as they approached her. Lydia reached out to her, but seemed to change her mind just as quickly, and she drew her hand back again. "Really, it's okay. It's just that the living room will have to be cleaned up, because they were quite rough in their search for you, Harry."

"Bastards," Ginny muttered.

"They didn't hurt you in any way?" Harry asked, grabbing her shoulders and regarding her at arm's length.

"Honestly, they didn't," she replied. Harry saw no cuts, bruises, or anything to prove otherwise, and so he drew her into an embrace.

"I'm sorry to bring this onto you," he said after they let go again. From the corner of his eye he saw Ginny glare at him.

"You weren't the one who made a mess of my house," Luna simply replied. "Lydia, you'll have to stay here for a while, I'm afraid," she continued, turning to the witch standing next to her. "They put a lot of monitoring charms on my house and hearth, and so they'll know exactly who enters and leaves."

"Oh poo," Lydia sighed, her shoulders sagging.

"Don't worry Lydia," Ginny said. "You can stay with us here as long as you like. We've got far too many rooms anyway."

"Thank you," she said, and Harry knew that she meant it.

Luna left soon after to clean up her house again. Ginny went with her, as she was the only person who was able to do so out of the three of them. Harry and Lydia remained standing there on the carpet in front of the fireplace for a short while after they left. Then Harry rubbed his left forearm and went upstairs to find something useful to do in the meantime.

* * *

That night, long after Ginny came back again and Lydia had disappeared upstairs into one of the guest bedrooms Harry had prepared for her, they had more visitors in the shape of Ron and Hermione.

"Alright," Hermione said without preamble after they entered through the fireplace. "Explain. Now. What's going on with that interview? And why weren't we warned?"

"Hey Hermione, it's good to see you too," Ginny replied, sitting next to Harry on the couch.

"Imagine my shock when I come into work this morning, and an Auror drops this morning's special edition of the Quibbler on my desk," Hermione continued. She plopped down into one of the sofas and Ron followed suit, looking torn between anger on his fiancée's behalf, and happiness at seeing Harry and Ginny again. "Why didn't you simply tell us you were going to be doing this?"

"Precisely for that reason," Harry replied. "We knew you'd face inquiries, and we wanted to make sure they didn't think you were involved. You must've acted quite surprised, right?"

Hermione fixed him an icy stare. "You could say that. Ron as well when they turned up at George's shop."

"Nothing bad happened," Ron interjected when Harry and Ginny turned to him. "A couple of Robards' new Aurors showed up, asked a few questions, then left again."

"This is good news, then," Harry said. "Now hopefully, Hermione, they'll be out of your hair for the time being, because we have something we'd like you to do."

"You do, do you?" she asked in a not too friendly tone.

"Yep," Harry said happily. "And it was all Ginny's idea."

He winked at his girlfriend when Hermione's ire was transferred from Harry onto her. Ginny threw a scathing look at him, but nonetheless began explaining the idea that she and Harry had come up with earlier that day.

* * *

Hermione didn't show her anger outwardly the next day when she went into work. Why had she agreed to this? It was madness to attempt something like this while she knew that she was being watched the whole time by Lord Castlereagh's consorts.

She took the same route across the Atrium, into the lifts, got out at level four ("Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures", the cool voice announced – Hermione was still working on getting the name changed to a less morbid one) and entered the head office of the floor.

She deposited her quill and notebook on her desk and quickly went to the bathroom. She locked the stall door behind her and then fished a quill and a memo from the inner pocket of her jacket, and she quickly wrote a note, hoping that the woman in the stall next to hers wouldn't hear the scratching of the quill on paper. After she exited the loo again, she discreetly sent the memo on its way in a different direction.

Back at her office she began sorting through her inbox. She rejected the offer of Amanda Baynes, her secretary, to get her a cup of coffee, and she opened up the quarterly report on House Elf behaviour across magical households. Halfway through page two (which contained the announcement that Gimpy and Beamy of Greengrass Manor had married), there was a knock on her door. She waved her wand to open it, and a memo zoomed in.

" _To the head of the Department for the Regulation etc. etc. etc. Advice is required at the Ministerial Archives a.s.a.p."_

She'd written it with a self-writing quill, so the handwriting was quite different from hers. She placed the note down on her desk and took one last look at the picture that stood there next to her inbox, where Ron laid on his side, watching Rose crawl in and out of the picture frame, chasing Albert the giraffe as it shuffled backwards, its neck twitching painfully. After a while she got up, leaving the memo in plain sight for any visitors, and walked out of her office, back to the lifts.

The archives were on the same level as the Department of Mysteries, as both departments required completely sterile air, a cool temperature, and low humidity. The Department of Mysteries was staffed well enough. The Archives, on the other hand, weren't.

 _The perks of multiple generations of witches and wizards being taught history by Professor Binns_ , she thought, remembering all those classes where she was the only one awake enough to hear what the dead-and-dull Professor had to say.

But that didn't excuse the Ministry for failing to hire a new archivist since the last one, Arnold Ritchie, had died a few months ago. It was unmanned at the moment. She entered through an inconspicuous door in the black hallways leading to the Department of Mysteries and was greeted by piles and piles of boxes, papers, pieces of parchment, inheritances, newspapers, notes of meetings and whatever else had gathered here. It all lay loose in the archivist's office, waiting to be sorted by the poor soul that would eventually have to be hired. But for that to happen, someone higher up would have to remember that the Archives still existed, and that would probably only happen once the papers started spilling out onto the corridor.

On the other hand, this situation did make what she had stupidly agreed to do easier. The idea, as Harry and Ginny had explained to her, was that the interview in The Quibbler would not cause the amount of unrest that they wanted. It would take a lot more for Lord Castlereagh's position as Minister to become unsalvageable. Still, though, the signs were hopeful. The Auror visits to her, Ron, and Luna showed that it had attracted attention, and the interview had been the talk of the day at work and that night on the Wizarding Wireless Network. The interview had clearly made an impression, judging by the shocked tone of the talk show hosts.

But Harry and Ginny thought that it needed a little extra, which was why she was here now.

It was time to find out what really happened in Belfast at the time when Damien Smith was conceived.

She took one last look back at the corridor she just came from, but it was deserted. She closed the door, stepped over the piles of paper as she moved towards the desk that stood to her right. An old heavy key lay there, unguarded, just open in plain sight. She grabbed it and made her way to the heavy vault door at the end of the room. The key fit inside the hole, and she turned it with quite a bit of effort. The mechanics inside the door squeaked and ground to life. She heard a click, and pushed open the heavy door.

Cold, stale air greeted her when she stepped inside the pitch-black room. She gave the door an almighty shove, and it closed behind her with a _clang!_ that shook her entire body. Then she conjured several lights with her wand and sent them on their way to float through the room.

She saw rows and rows of cabinets that reached up to twice her height. They were filled to the brim with folders, boxes, or loose rolls of parchment. With a whispered _"Lumos"_ she lit up the end of her wand and held it close to the cabinet closest to her, to look for a date.

 _01-01-1944_ , it read. She moved one cabinet to the left and saw the year 1956. A few more rows further, and she was at 1980. Harry had told her that he didn't know how old Damien really was, but that he suspected that Damien wasn't that much older than him, and that he was born before Voldemort's first fall. 1980 seemed like a good place to start, so she set to work.

She knew that it would take long, far longer than today. She found several boxes labelled with _"Auror Office"_ , but none of them had any relevant documents, only reports on Death Eater activity and killings of Muggles. All too soon the half hour that she had given herself was up, and she placed the latest box she was digging though back on its shelf. She cut a small "X" into it to remind herself of where she last left off, and then she exited the Archives again to get back to work before anyone would ask too many questions.

When she got back to level four, though, she saw that there was someone standing there in front of her office, wearing red robes. She stopped to quash the stab of fear that rose up in her, and then approached him. He noticed her halfway and walked towards her with a friendly expression.

"Ah, Miss Granger," he said. She now recognised him as Fabian Fletcher, one of Robards' new additions. "I wanted to speak to you, but I noticed you weren't there."

"Good morning, Fletcher," she said. "I was in the Archives, responding to a memo. What did you need me for?"

"Oh, it's nothing," he said with an easy smile. "I wanted to ask you something about the Centaurs, but somebody else already answered that for me."

"The Centaurs?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows. "What for, if I may ask?"

"They're acting a bit strangely, and we think there's some trouble brewing in the Forbidden Forest," he replied. "The creatures there are getting a bit restless, but that's all I can really say on that matter. Anyway, I'll stop wasting your time now. Have a nice day!"

And he pushed past her and strode out the corridor. Hermione watched him go for a short moment, but then went inside her office again.

The point of that strange encounter was clear enough to her: Castlereagh and Robards wanted her to know that she was being watched. She would have to be extra careful from now on with her search for more details on Damien's past. Again, she cursed Harry and Ginny for talking her into this.

* * *

Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan did not have regular contact anymore with their old schoolfriends. In fact, they practically lived as Muggles, as neither could find the proper job in the Wizarding World. The depressing fact was that the Wizarding World was quite far behind the Muggle one when it came to gay rights.

Despite that, they followed the news surrounding Harry Potter anxiously, ever since his disappearance a year and a half ago. When they read in the _Daily Prophet_ that Harry was wanted by the Ministry for unauthorised usage of Unforgivable Curses as Auror, they were shocked and in disbelief. They'd seen the signs from afar: they knew that this was a slander campaign by the new Minister, Lord Castlereagh, who was openly hostile to the previous government. And when he turned out to be a homophobe as well, calling Kingsley and Harry _"weak-willed faggots"_ , the last doubts disappeared and their feelings towards the new minister turned to open dislike.

Things quieted down after that, until one day they caught wind of an incredible new article in the Quibbler. Harry Potter had resurfaced with shocking claims against Lord Castlereagh: that he was conspiring against the Ministry with his disowned half-brother, who was a ruthless gang leader in Belfast. It sounded far-fetched, but The Quibbler was no longer the strange sensationalist magazine it used to be. Plus, this was Harry. And Harry wouldn't just lie about these things.

And so, after they had both read through the article inside their apartment in East-London, Seamus placed the magazine back on the table and turned to Dean.

"I think it's time we did something about this," he said. "When I had that coffee date with Lavender yesterday we talked about Lord Castlereagh and how his new policies have been geared towards the old discriminatory nature again. She's scared because she's still affected by those bites she got from Greyback. And now this… This can't go on any longer."

"I know, luv, you don't have to convince me," Dean said, rubbing circles on Seamus' back. "But what do you want us to do?"

"We protest," Seamus said readily, and Dean guessed he had this answer prepared for quite a while already. "We gather up some others and we protest in Diagon Alley. That way we can show the others that they're not alone in their worries and discontent. And…" he fidgeted the ring on his middle finger. He'd bought it together with Ginny on the day she helped him admit his sexuality. It was a cheap thing from some touristic shop, but he never stopped wearing it since that day. "I don't exactly think we should keep it to just one demonstration, to be honest. We could make it a monthly thing. Or weekly. Whatever we can do to make the new Minister's life hell."

Dean looked away from Seamus, mulling over the proposal for a while. But when he met his eyes again, there was a steely glint in his gaze that made Seamus' heart jump a little.

"Alright," he said. "Who do you have in mind?"

The first of a series of protests started that Friday.


	19. Chapter 18

Lord Castlereagh's response to the accusations in The Quibbler was short, but intense. _"Yes, I've read the thing,"_ he'd replied in the _Daily Prophet. "And no, I'm not worried. Need I remind you that Potter is a wanted man? He wants to evade justice, and this plot to get me out of the way is obviously a part of this. Don't be fooled by these tactics, and don't be surprised if more of his manipulations come your way. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a session with the Wizengamot to attend."_

That was a week ago. And then a strange sense of normalcy descended over Grimmauld Place 12. Ginny's sick leave, or so she had called it to explain her absence to the others, ended, and she once again went to the Harpies for training. Harry and Lydia were forced to remain behind under the Fidelius Charm, and for good reason. The Floos of Luna, Ron and Hermione and The Burrow were now being monitored, or so Hermione told them. When they looked outside through the windows of the hallway, they saw an Auror stationed at the small square in front of the house. Harry was painfully reminded of the time of Voldemort, thinking back to his, Ron, and Hermione's stay at Grimmauld Place after Voldemort had taken over the Ministry. In that exact same spot used to stand a Death Eater. The only difference was that the square looked a lot more dilapidated back then. The area had been gentrified since then.

Lydia didn't show herself much outside of mealtimes and when Luna visited, and that left Harry to brood on his own. He slept poorly as well, often waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. He felt for his left arm, but there was nothing there.

Ginny sensed his discomfort after almost a week, and when she got home on a Thursday, she sat Harry down across her at the dinner table.

"Right, tell me what's wrong," she said. "Your mind was a million miles away when I came home just now, and you've been awfully quiet as well these days."

Harry chewed on his tongue and squashed the initial urge to fib her off.

"I can't handle this," he admitted, and once those words were out he was committed to sharing his frustrations with Ginny. "I'm inside all day, Lydia never shows herself, and meanwhile Lord Castlereagh is reversing pretty much everything Kingsley and us had achieved over the past decade, and Yaxley is out there somewhere, doing God knows what. Hermione gets to sneak behind everyone's back and look for Damien's past, Ron gets to supply the protesters at Diagon Alley with things from the Wheezes shop at their next protest tomorrow, you're training for the match, Luna is collecting more background information on Lord Castlereagh, and I?" He took a breath and spread his arms. "I'm doing nothing! I can't even visit my own Godson who I haven't seen in a year and a half because he's at Hogwarts!"

Ginny didn't reply immediately, and he dropped his hands back on the table.

When the silence dragged on, Harry grew increasingly uncomfortable by her compassionate gaze.

"Harry–" she began.

"This is exactly what Sirius went through," Harry interrupted her.

Ginny opened her mouth, but then closed it again.

"But no one listened to him," he continued. "And he got more pent up and frustrated, and then came that fight at the Department of Ministries."

"He would have gone there either way," Ginny said softly. "He loved you, Harry, he was always going to come along."

"I know," Harry said, his throat constricting at the way she talked about him. "But… d'you think he would have been that careless if he hadn't been locked up for so long before it?"

"Are you saying you're going to do something stupid?" Ginny challenged.

"No!" he called. "Yes. Maybe… I don't know." He sighed and dropped his head in his hands. "I just… I've been locked up in here for not two weeks, and I'm already completely sick of it. Something big is coming, Ginny, and I can feel it. But I'm afraid that… well… I'm not the most careful person in the world, and…"

"Maybe not," Ginny said, the corners of her mouth twitching. "But I don't think it's going to come to a fight or anything like that," she continued. "We've got a plan for Lord Castlereagh, and if Yaxley stays put, we'll be able to let him be for now, and deal with him afterwards."

"Maybe," he reluctantly said. "I wish I had your confidence."

"Hmm. But you do trust me, don't you?"

"With my life," Harry replied readily.

Ginny's compassionate gaze disappeared and made way for a blazing look that Harry loved so much. They leaned across the table and their lips met. One of Ginny's hands snaked around his head and ran through his hair and he mirrored her movement, relishing the feel of her long red hair in his hand. It was awkward, leaning over so far to kiss her, and he wanted to feel more. He reluctantly tore his lips from hers and stood up, his chair almost toppling over behind him. He moved around the table in a few quick strides, but when he made to kiss Ginny again, she put a hand on his chest, stopping his advance.

"Harry," she began, and she took a step back. "There's something else that's bothering you, isn't there?"

Harry breathed out shakily and met her gaze. "I thought I gave plenty of reasons for me to be frustrated," he said.

"You did," she replied, her eyes boring into his. "But you're distracted as well as frustrated, and those two things are not the same. When we kiss and make love, it's almost like…"

"Like what?" Harry asked, feeling worried now. "I thought it was fine… great, even… erm, last night, that is."

"Oh, it was," she said, and they couldn't help but grin at each other. "But…" her grin faltered. "I don't know how to say it, really. You rub your left arm a lot. And that's where…"

"The Elder Wand used to be," Harry mumbled, ducking his head as he felt heat rush to his cheeks.

"And… well… You don't still have it, do you?"

Harry's head whipped up again. "What?" he exclaimed. "No! No, I don't have it anymore! How…" But he faltered. He wanted to ask her how she could think that of him, but then the shame of lying to her for months rushed back to him, and he could no longer finish the sentence. "It's… It's hard to explain," he said at a more subdued tone, once again looking down to inspect his feet.

"Then try," she said in a small voice.

Harry clenched his jaw as he thought back to the moments in the middle of the night when he woke up, expecting to feel the ice-cold weight of the Elder Wood touching his naked skin. He hooked his foot behind the chair that stood behind him and pulled it towards him. He sank down, his eyes still downcast.

"When I still had it," he began slowly. "I could feel it. It was cold and heavy. It felt like… you know when you have these moments where you can feel the blood rushing through you? When you're more aware than usual of the processes going on inside your body?"

"Yes."

"I felt something else as well at those moments," he said. "I felt the link of the Elder Wand, travelling through my arm…" He traced his index finger along his forearm, to his elbow, to his shoulder, and then to his chest. "… to here. It was part of me, well and truly, even though I was only rarely truly aware of it. And sometimes that feeling would be stronger. When I hadn't used it in a while, I would feel that link more strongly. And at some moments it was unbearable, it was so strong…"

He trailed off, thinking back to that moment in Belfast, when Lydia had turned her back to him and the toxic urge to hurt her had welled up inside him. He shook his head and looked up. Ginny had sat down as well and looked at him without blinking. He realised now that even though it had felt like he'd told her everything on the day he first woke up here, he'd still left out this bit about the effect the Elder Wand had on him. He briefly wondered what else was lost on him that day, but he forced that thought down for now.

"And now that you don't have that wand?" she asked softly.

"Only now do I know how… how present the thing really was," he said. "Now that the link is gone, I only feel much more intensely that it's _not_ there." He swallowed and looked deep into her dark brown eyes. "I miss it," he whispered, his fists clenched as he forced the admission from him. "I can't imagine what would've happened if I'd actually used it as my normal wand. If I'd become truly addicted to it." He thought back to the heroin addict that had attacked him upon his arrival in Belfast, remembering the man's withered look, smell, the gurgling sound of his rotting breath…

"I can," Ginny spoke up, wrenching Harry from his recollection.

"What's that?"

"As soon as you… left," she said. "I started looking for things that could help me find you. And I found some books on the Elder Wand in the attic. I suppose the Black family dismissed them as useless fairy tales. One of them actually _was_ a collection of tales, but, looking back on it, I suppose they were more true than everyone gave the author credit for, because the way he described the effects of the Wand on its users is eerily similar to what you described."

She took a deep breath and reached out to clasp his hand. "It turned people into monsters," she said, her thumb stroking the back of his hand. "People went mad because of it, one by one, until they couldn't live anymore. Then they would die, and the Wand would find a new person to latch onto." Her grip on his hand tightened. "I was so worried that it would do that to you as well," she continued. "But it didn't, Harry. It didn't get to you. You're stronger than that. _We're_ stronger than that. So, whatever is left in there of the Wand, it won't get to you. It didn't before, and it won't now."

Harry breathed in shakily. He tugged their clasped hands towards him, pulling her into his lap, and he threw his arms around her.

"I love you," he whispered, burying his head into her hair.

"I love you too," she murmured.

As if it were a coordinated move, they turned to each other, and their lips met in a slow kiss. It was not needy or desperate as it was before, but tender, and Harry closed his eyes as he felt his heart wash over with emotion. He closed his arms tightly around her, running his hands over her back, revelling in the feeling of her pressed so close to his lips, chest, and groin, and marvelling at idea that she was here, she was real, and she wanted him.

They eventually remembered to move upstairs to their bedroom, where they wouldn't have the chance to be interrupted by Lydia.

* * *

The days went by at a sluggish pace and turned into weeks. News reached Grimmauld Place that the protests in Diagon Alley, that happened every Friday now, were steadily growing in size. Aurors hadn't intervened yet, nor had Lord Castlereagh said anything more on the matter, but that only increased Harry's nervousness. There were people in there who he went to Hogwarts with: Dean, Seamus, Lavender, Dennis Creevy, and many others. And they were joined by people who were sympathetic to either them or Harry Potter. _"Potter for PM"_ was a common slogan written on the many protest signs as they walked up and down the long avenue, from the Leaky Cauldron to Gringotts, and then back again.

Someone – Harry had a strong suspicion that it was Dean – had come up with a logo that depicted the silhouette of the Minister as he was struck by lightning. One cold Monday morning, Diagon Alley had woken up to see that logo plastered on almost half the shopfronts. Aurors had removed the posters as soon as they were alerted to the situation, but not before news of the incident had spread around like wildfire.

The protesters had taken to handing out free copies of the interview with Harry all over the shopping street to passers-by. But shopkeepers quickly had enough of them and threatened to call the Aurors if they didn't leave. That was where George and Ron stepped in, and they welcomed the protesters to their front entrance at all times. It was hard to get inside the shop now, Ron had enthusiastically said to Harry, but that didn't matter, because the commotion attracted such a big crowd that it still brought many more visitors into the shop.

That conversation had happened on one of his regular visits to Grimmauld Place with updates on the situation outside. The fact that he started doing this the day after Harry had shared his frustrations with Ginny did raise Harry's suspicion, but he chose not to bring it up to her later. He had other ways of showing his appreciation.

"It's getting more chaotic out there," Ron had said on a Saturday afternoon four weeks after the interview had been published. He was slightly flushed and utterly failed in keeping a grin off his face as he settled in the chair across from Harry at the dining table. "If more people join next week, they'll block the whole road with their group! We figure that might be the point where the Aurors and Hit Wizards come in to restore order, so George had the idea to send them to Quidditch matches instead before that could happen. They liked that idea so much that they'll be at the Harpies tomorrow when they play Puddlemere!" Then his grin faltered. "You can't go, I suppose?"

"What do you think, Ron?" Harry asked despondently.

"Not even… you know, with the cloak?"

"Yaxley has the cloak."

"Oh… Right."

Harry felt a spark of irritation at his friend for forgetting about that, but it died down as quickly as it came when he realised how quiet the news had been around the fugitive Death Eater. Harry had all the time in the world to mull everything over until it drove him mad – Ron didn't.

"You noticed the lack of response from Lord Castlereagh as well, right?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, apart from his initial response to the interview in The Quibbler," Harry said.. "Strange, isn't it? I expected him to be a lot more aggressive."

"Me too. It worries me a bit. Kind of feels like we're waiting for something bad to happen, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Harry said. He rapped his fingers on the wooden surface of the table. "Especially with the protests, you know. If something happens to them…"

"They know full well what the risks are," Ron said. "I've asked Dean and Seamus about this as well. They know the risks, they're prepared for things to turn grim, and they _say_ that it won't stop them. How it pans out in reality, we'll have to see."

"I hope we won't have to," Harry murmured.

Hermione continued her search in the abandoned archives for Damien's past. She picked irregular times to do so and now and again skipped her lunch break to sneak off, but it was a sluggish process. She had found a few Auror documents referring to Belfast, particularly notes of arrests when they captured a gang member. She'd also found the decree of Barty Crouch, head of the DMLE at the time, giving Aurors free reign to do anything they deemed necessary to stop the violence and potion trading in the streets, in 1975. That was useful, because it marked the boundaries of her search. But references to Damien or anything related to him were not yet forthcoming.

And then came Sunday, and Ginny and the Harpies smashed Puddlemere United 320-70 in a resounding victory that left the commentators hoarse from their shouting. The already raucous mood inside the stadium reached fever pitch midway through the game, when the Harpies Ultras ("The Hags" they called themselves) unfurled a giant banner of the very same art piece that had been spread around all over Diagon Alley: the silhouette of Lord Castlereagh being struck by a lightning bolt. _"Voldemort is dead – Let his ideals die with him"_ , it said underneath it. The banner was met with some booing here and there, but that was quickly drowned out by loud cries of approval all throughout the stadium. The commentators desperately tried to ignore it in an attempt to keep the broadcast neutral, but were forced to abandon that when the ultras began chanting _"Down with the Lords – Down with the pedestal – Listen to the hordes – Make Ministers electable!"_

Harry, who had been listening rapturously along on the Wireless, wasn't adequately prepared when Ginny got home not too soon after the match, dumped her bag in the corridor and dragged him onto the couch, draping herself over him as she covered his face in kisses.

"Ginny–" Harry began, but he was silenced when she placed a finger on his lips. She lifted herself up, straddling him at the hips, and unceremoniously pulled her shirt off.

"I've got a great idea," she whispered. There was no bra underneath the shirt, and Harry's brain screeched to a halt.

"What's that?" he squeaked. He reached up to cup her breasts, but she slapped his approaching hands away and dragged him up by his shoulders to pull his own shirt of as well. His thoughts caught up to the adrenaline racing through his body once the shirt was halfway over his head, and he helped tear the thing from him faster.

"Ginny," he breathed. "What if Lydia walks in?"

"Wouldn't that be something?" she asked, her eyes twinkling. She bent over to kiss the tip of his nose, the she slipped off his lap, and she sunk to her knees on the floor. "Don't worry about that, love," she purred, her hands starting to work on his belt now. "Stand up."

Harry, guessing where this might be headed, shot up from the couch. She undid his belt and tore open the buttons of his fly, then yanked his trousers and boxers down in one forceful movement.

She wrapped a hand around his half-erect member and stroked it a few times as it hardened. A moan escaped his throat when she opened her mouth and licked the underside of his helmet. His hands shot to her hair, which was still wet from the shower after the game, and he brushed it behind her head as she closed her mouth around him.

"I agree," he grunted. She moved her head forward, her lips sliding further along his length. "This was a _fantastic_ idea."

She pulled her mouth from him and looked up as she stroked him more quickly now. "It is, but I wasn't referring to this," she said, grinning up at him.

"Then what… oh _God!_ " he moaned when she wrapped her lips around the tip of his member, silencing him before he could ask more.

He slowly drifted to bliss as she continued to pleasure him with her mouth. Eventually he stopped running his hands through her hair, and he pulled himself from her. She looked up at him, her lips slightly parted and saliva sticking to her chin. Lust rushed through him at the sight, and he bent over to pull her up.

"Your turn," he said, his voice husky. He spun them around and deposited her on the couch. Her pants were off in a frenzy of clammy hands (Harry briefly noticed that there was no underwear either) and he brought his lips to the small tuft of red hair, plastering the warm skin there in kisses. He ignored his screaming instincts for now, and instead of travelling down, he traced kisses upwards, up to her belly button, prolonging the moment of pleasured anticipation. Her belly moved jerkily when he arrived at a particular point underneath her button where she was sensitive.

"Get to it, Potter," she growled. Harry grinned against her skin. She never had the patience for this. He moved his hands up her legs and placed them around the sides of her hips as he went further down, towards her folds. Ginny's belly gave a jolt when he encountered her clitoris. He felt two hands on his scalp as he closed his lips around it.

"Harry," she breathed. Her nails dug into him, and the pain added to the swirling torrent of lust that coursed through him. He stuck out his tongue and gently flicked it against her. Her sweet taste entered his mouth. He heard her breath coming out in rasping pants, and her legs squirmed against him. "Yes," she panted, the sound turning into a drawn-out hiss.

He traced his hands against the delicious curve of her bum, and placed one at her entrance, rubbing his index finger against it as his other hand danced across as much naked skin as it could find.

He slipped a finger inside her, and her legs clenched more against him. He wanted nothing more than to get up off his knees and bury himself inside her, but the way she moaned in appreciation at his caresses and kisses was too intoxicating to stop. He gently pushed his finger inside her, and after a while of more teasing and licking, he pushed further inside, and then carefully curled his finger up. Ginny gasped more loudly, and her breathing quickened more and more, and he felt her growing wetter. He lapped it up with his tongue and continued teasing her as her gasps grew louder and more desperate. He added a second finger, and her hands, previously dancing across her skin, shot down to the couch, and she sank her fingers deep into the cushion.

"Don't stop," Ginny whispered, her squirming growing into jerking, trashing movements against him. "Don't stop!" He moved his eyes to look at her face as she clenched up, her eyes squeezed shut, her mouth half open as she froze, all muscles tensed. She tightened around his fingers, and he tasted more of her wetness as she spasmed against him, her hands pushing against the couch as an orgasm ran through her.

Then she gasped in a faint, high note, and the tension left her body. Harry removed his finger from her, and she looked at him through half lidded eyes as he stuck it in his mouth to taste more from her. He moved up and slid up next to her on the couch, embracing her in the tender afterglow of her peak. Their lips met and she pressed more tightly against him, rubbing herself against his erection. Harry placed his hands on her waist and she ended up underneath him, her legs spread for him. He broke their embrace to lean back, and his eyes never left hers as he grabbed himself and eased himself into her.

The frenzied passion of before was gone now, and it was replaced by an intoxicating sensations of tender love that he felt for her as their bodies pressed together. He leant down again to capture her lips.

"Love you," she murmured against his lips after they broke their soft kiss. Her legs closed around him, and she pulled him closer to her, deeper into her.

Ever since Harry had come home again, he'd found it hard to accept this new situation. It had all felt so unreal after all that time spent on the run or in the company of people he had to hide his true identity from. But as he lay there, body and soul intertwined with Ginny, he knew that he could finally accept it now as a reality. This was where he belonged, and the realisation sunk down into him like the warm feeling of Firewhisky slipping down his throat.

"I love you too," he whispered, pushing himself into her anew. "So much."

She threw her head back, and he kissed her exposed throat eagerly, cupping her breast as he supported himself with his other hand. Their movements sped up. The sound of their skin coming together got louder. Excitement shot through him and he began pressing into her more roughly.

"Yes, Harry!" she moaned, her hands dancing over his back and bum.

"Ginny," he panted, tearing his lips from her throat as he felt his climax approaching. "I'm gonna…"

"Come for me," she said, locking her eyes with his. "God, yes, come inside me!"

Harry grunted and clenched his belly. He thrusted into her erratically as white-hot lust overcame his whole being, and finally he pushed himself deep into her, and stilled. Gasps, moans escaped his throat as he emptied himself into her and vaguely he heard her calling his name, felt her clenching, tensing around him. He felt her arms on his back, her legs wrapped around him, and her breasts squished against him as he pressed as much of his naked skin against hers as he could.

And then his orgasm subsided, and he let out a shaky breath into her hair. He heard her do the same, and her limbs that were draped over him relaxed and slid off.

"That was…" Harry said, still breathing roughly, "… amazing."

She sighed contently, but then tapped his sides.

"You're kind of heavy," she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder.

"Oh, sorry." He pushed himself up, his arms still trembling from the aftermath, and pulled himself from her. He looked down at her. Her hair was a tangled mess, her skin was flushed from her cheeks down to her chest, and his cum slowly dripped from her, flowing onto the couch.

"That match really got you in the mood, didn't it?" he asked, grinning at her.

"It did," she said, mirroring his grin as she sat up. "That, and I had a great idea. It's going to make a lot of people very angry, it's _definitely_ very illegal, and it made me so… so _thrilled_."

"What is it, then?"

She stood up and pecked him on his lips. "Got to use the loo first," she said, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

* * *

After they got dressed and thoroughly cleaned the surface of the couch, Harry went upstairs at Ginny's request to fetch Lydia.

"You're done shagging, then?" Lydia asked when he entered her bedroom.

"Erm, yeah. Sorry," he said, feeling a tinge of heat rise to his cheeks. "Ginny wants to tell us something."

"Right." She stood up from her bed and followed him out the room. Ginny was waiting for them, seated at the dining table, and he and Lydia sat down opposite her.

"Right," she began without preamble. "We've agreed that the interview we did in The Quibbler was not enough to deal with Lord Castlereagh. It's been over four weeks now. While the protests are an amazing thing, we still need a bit extra to really make him feel the heat." Her lips curled up. "And I know how to do that."

Harry and Lydia exchanged a look.

"What's the most important task of the Ministry?" Ginny continued.

"To uphold the Statute of Secrecy," Harry readily replied.

"Exactly. So what if we make that particular task a lot harder for the Minister and his goons? They'll fail at the most essential thing that they have to do, and I don't think that will make them look too competent. Moreover, it will add an acute threat to Lord Castlereagh's reign if there's a chance the Statute of Secrecy gets breached on a massive scale."

"What do you propose?" Harry asked. He noticed that Lydia sat up straighter in her chair next to him.

"You know that logo Dean made?" she asked.

"Oh, so it _was_ Dean who did it!" he exclaimed. "I _knew_ it!"

"It's an idea that we got during the year at Hogwarts when Voldemort ruled," Ginny said, smirking. "And my idea is roughly the same: I propose we spread that logo to the Muggle world. We spray it on the walls here and there, and mostly near the Leaky Cauldron, the entrance to St. Mungo's, King's Cross…"

"Places where are a lot of Magical folk congregate," Lydia filled in. Her eyes lit up and she leaned forward. "It's brilliant," she said, grinning. "Oh, this'll cause so many squeaky bums at the Ministry!"

"Exactly!" Ginny said.

"It's a fantastic idea!" Harry said, the tempo of his heartbeat increasing. "But there's just one thing: the Ministry will blame the protesters for this, and we've been talking a lot about our fears that things will turn grim for them. Don't you think that this will endanger them?"

"Of course I've thought about that!" Ginny replied. "But I figured that if it does look like the Ministry is going to take it out on them…" she paused and averted her gaze, "then I'll step forward and admit that it was me who did it."

Silence hung between them after that.

"No," Harry then said. "No way. It's bad enough that Lydia and I are prisoners in our own home, and you're not joining us."

"I didn't realise that it was a private party here," she tersely replied.

"It's not like that, and you know it," he said. "It's awful, being trapped here while the world is moving along outside, and I don't want you to have to go through that as well."

"It's not up to you to decide for me," she replied. Then she sighed, and her rigid pose deflated. "To be honest, I think it's a matter of time anyway."

Harry's eyebrows rose up. "How so?"

"My teammates and the coach already guessed that you're here, and we're living together again. It's pretty much a public secret within the club, and that extends to fitness staff, administration, and so on. I wouldn't be surprised if the interns know as well. And judging by the guards that are stationed outside our home at all times, I think it's pretty clear that the Ministry are onto us as well." She fidgeted her hands. "You might not like it in here, but believe me, the stress of going to training, media events and matches while you know you're being watched by Castlereagh's goons is not fun either."

Harry swallowed and looked away briefly. "I'm sorry," he said. "I suppose I didn't think enough about how all of this makes you feel."

"All the more reason, then, to speed our plans up," Ginny said.

"Agreed," Lydia readily said. "Let's do it tonight."

"I was just about to say the same," Ginny replied, smiling at the other woman.

Harry wanted to object, say that it was too soon, but the prospect of actually _doing_ something was too enticing. Lydia and Ginny looked at him expectantly, and he grinned. "Then let's stir some trouble, shall we?"

* * *

In the end, the process of painting the logo on walls in Muggle London was almost anticlimactic. It was a miserable, rainy night. It was midway through May, but the nights were still far too cold for Harry's liking. Ginny, Lydia and Harry cast a Disillusionment Charm over themselves as they apparated in an empty alleyway near the Leaky Cauldron, but it proved to be unnecessary. The streets were empty, as it was the middle of Wednesday night. They could simply walk up to the storefronts around the dingy pub, press a cutout of the logo to the wall, and then conjure a thick blob of black paint to splash against it.

They repeated this process a few times, and then apparated to another part of London, to where the entrance to St. Mungo's was. Here they did the same, but they had to pause when a police car turned into the street. The Disillusionment Charm's only weakness was that you would shimmer if you moved around, so all they had to do was stand still and wait for the car to pass before they could continue covering the walls and windows in copies of the logo.

Their last stop was the phone booth entrance to the Ministry at Whitehall, and this proved to be the hardest part, as it was in the touristic centre of the city, and police were more present here. They had to cut their session short because of this, because after placing the first few logos on the walls of the stately white Westminster buildings, a passing policeman had spotted their handiwork. He stopped before one of the logo's, inspecting it closely, and then said something into his walkie-talkie. Harry, standing a fair few feet away from it, reached out beside him and brushed against Ginny.

"He's calling for backup," he whispered to her. "Tell Lydia, we're getting out of here."

"Got it," she whispered back.

Harry waited for the sound of two _pops_ , watching as two other policemen approached the scene, before Apparating away as well.

Back home, they spent a short time warming up again with some hot chocolate, and they shared many self-satisfied smiles, sharing their expectations with one another on how the Ministry would react come morning. But fatigue overtook them and soon they went to bed. Harry, even though he was jittery with anticipation, fell asleep as soon as he sank down next to Ginny and his head hit the pillow. Pandemonium would break loose at the Ministry merely a few hours later.


	20. Chapter 19

Floo number fourteen of the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic lit up, and out tumbled Ella Summers. She paused for a moment to take a deep breath and get her bearing again; Flooing was not her favourite mode of transportation, especially not on a Monday morning just after she'd emptied a cup of coffee in record time.

She marched past the visitor's booth, and past the oversized fountain in the shape of a Snitch. The past few months had not been pleasant for her, but the gigantic monument in honour of Harry Potter never failed to brighten up her mornings. Word went around her office – the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes – that Minister Castlereagh had tried – and failed – to get rid of the fountain. Clearly he was not happy with the enormous monument to the man he had an enormous grudge against, right in the most prominent spot of the Ministry.

She stepped into the lift and greeted the others that were there. She got a few groggy nods in return. Ah, Monday mornings. At least she worked in an office where the atmosphere was cordial. That was a remarkable thing these days, as the recent happenings in the Wizarding World had divided people in such a way that she hadn't seen since the days of You-Know-Who: people rowed over whether Harry Potter was a criminal or not; they rowed over the new decrees and measures of Lord Castlereagh, especially concerning the increasing severity of criminal sentences; they rowed over Kingsley Shacklebolt's sentencing to Azkaban; they rowed over the weekly protests at Diagon Alley and whether or not they were justified in their demonstrations, and so on and so forth.

She stepped out of the elevator at level three, ducked underneath a school of memos that flew by her and sought her usual place in the office of the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee. Before she got to work, her eyes sought out two pictures on the corner of her desk: one of her and her husband, Frank, arm in arm in their wedding clothes. The other was a picture of her son Charlie, on the day that he received his NEWTs. The indulgent pleasure that she felt at the sight of the fountain in the Atrium disappeared at the sight of him. He'd joined the Auror recruits during the summer, and was infinitely charmed by Gawain Robards, the old Head Auror. Every day he'd come home to tell them another tale of something the man had said, or something he'd done long ago, full of admiration for him and Lord Castlereagh. Attempts of her and Frank to talk to him and make him see that Robards had been on the wrong side of history during You-Know-Who's reign of terror had the opposite of the desired effect. Charlie would not see reason at all and kept repeating that the other Auror recruits all agreed with him.

Midway through the summer there came an evening where Charlie had come home after Auror training, announcing that he'd found a small flat in the outskirts of London. They had hardly heard from him since, apart from a few short letters in between where he informed them that he was doing okay. She sometimes saw him in passing through the corridors when he had another trial day with the Aurors, but he always seemed to look the other way.

"Bloody hell."

She shook herself out of her considerations and looked up. The curse had come from Jair, her boss. He stood behind his desk, his eyes roving over a memo that he'd just received.

"What's going on, Jair?" she asked. Others around her looked up as well.

"Grab your things, everyone," he said in a loud voice. "I'm afraid the unrest of the anti-Castlereagh movement has just spread to the Muggle World as well."

Ella adopted a shocked expression. And she was shocked, really, but it would not do to show the others that a thrill shot through her as she heard the news. If this was as bad as it sounded, then life for the Minister was about to get a lot harder, and she didn't feel sorry for him in the slightest.

* * *

"Right, two big things happened," Ron explained to Harry, Ginny and Lydia that evening. He'd come by with Hermione, and both of them looked utterly exhausted. "First, they've arrested Dean."

"What?!"

But Ron held up his hand to stop them. "He's been questioned and released again, as he swore under the effects of Veritaserum that he had nothing to do with the graffiti in the Muggle World today. Had to be careful not to mention that he had designed the logo in the first place, but all's well, and he's home safe again."

"Thank God for that," Ginny sighed.

"What's the second big thing?" Harry asked. He felt as if a heavy stone pressed down on his stomach.

"The Minister is not happy with this, of course," Ron said. "And you were right that he's starting to feel the heat under his feet now. By noon tomorrow, all Ministry employees have to hand in a signed document stating that they are not working together with Harry Potter. They handed one out to all of us."

"I've got mine with me," Hermione said softly, placing a small piece of paper on the dining table for the others to read.

" _I solemnly swear that I, Hermione Jean Granger, am not working together with Harry James Potter to sabotage the Ministry for Magic or its Minister."_

Underneath was the date, followed by Hermione's signature.

"You've signed it?" Ginny asked, looking up at her.

"Of course I have," Hermione said, a hint of impatience in her voice. "There are no spells attached to the paper, I've checked it. The entire point of this is that you are now obliged by a binding contract to hold yourself to these terms. It's just an excuse to fire people if they feel like it. In fact, anyone who hasn't signed it and handed it in by noon tomorrow is fired on the spot."

"Wow," Harry said. "It's going to be a shitshow tomorrow, then."

"It will be," Hermione said, her pose tense in obvious irritation. "I know plenty of people who said they'd refuse to cooperate. I don't know how many will actually go through with it in the end, but we could see an immense amount of people lose their jobs just like that tomorrow."

"But you're staying?" Ginny asked.

"Of course," Hermione said. "I've still got those archives to look through, haven't I? And if I leave, who is going to be in charge of my department? It's not hard to imagine what Castlereagh's adherents would do to the House Elves and other magical beings if they've got the final say."

Ron dropped a kiss on her cheek and put an arm around her. "I don't know what this world would do without you, love," he said. "But at the first sign that they're going to interrogate you with Veritaserum, you get out of there immediately, okay?"

"Of course, Ron. I'm not stupid," she mumbled, but Harry saw her eyes dance merrily at her fiance's affection.

* * *

Their predictions proved to be true. The Ministry that day became the setting of unbridled mayhem. All forms had to be delivered to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but during the design of the department they did not consider the possibility of the entire Ministry congregating there in the hallways, and so there were enormous queues in the department itself, in the elevators, in front of the elevators and quite far into the Atrium as well. Attempts by Ministry workers to make the queue run smoothly failed spectacularly, and they were forced to save people from being stuck in the elevator doors no less than 27 times.

That was all before the lunch break.

Of course, the chaos made the deadline of noon quite impossible, as the queues were still just as large as every halfway through the afternoon. All those people had to be assured that they would not lose their job because they missed the deadline, but that did little to quell the heated atmosphere. The first impromptu duel, fuelled by irritation and stress, happened around two o'clock.

Luna and some journalists from the _Daily Prophet_ were there, gleefully taking notes and pictures of the entire event, making sure that they had everything they needed to write a colourful description of it all.

It was also unclear what would happen if you did not show up at all, or if you handed in an unsigned note. Either way, some used the form to get creative. Some painted Dean's logo of Castlereagh getting struck by lightning on it, others simply wrote colourful insults on it. The people who did this had not heard back yet from their department heads by the time that the working day drew to a close. Still, despite the chaos, it was doubtful that Greg Peters of the Broom Control department would have his job for long after writing _"eat shit and die, Castlereagh"_ on his form.

Luna visited Grimmauld Place that evening to share her favourite incidents of the day, and the evening filled with joyful laughter at the chaos at the Ministry proved a hearty distraction for Harry, who was feeling more restless by the day as his imprisonment in his own house dragged on and on. The bottles of wine they'd gone through certainly helped in this aspect.

"But that's not the biggest story of the day," Luna said after telling them about a duel in the hallway between two impatient Hit Wizards, which had resulted in Auror Fletcher getting hit on the nose by a stray Engorgement Charm. Harry breathed out shakily as his laughter subsided.

"Biggest!" Ginny cried out, setting off Harry and Lydia again. "Bigger than his nose?"

Luna showed remarkable patience as she waited for the three of them to get themselves back under control.

"Yes, bigger," she said serenely. "Apparently Amelia Bones has also decided not to hand in her form."

"Oh," Harry said, the corners of his mouth twitching despite his attempts to stop it. He closed his eyes for a moment to quell the urge to laugh. "That's… Wait, so the members of the Wizengamot had to hand in a form as well?"

"They did, and they were not too pleased with it, I've heard," Luna said.

"Can Castlereagh strip people of their seat in the Wizengamot?" Lydia asked.

"He can, but it's hard and incredibly unwise to do so. Fudge tried to do so to Dumbledore in that year where he had that feud with him and Harry, but he failed. You have to have two thirds approval in the Wizengamot itself before someone can be kicked out, and Fudge didn't have that. Even Dumbledore's opponents voted against Fudge, because they hated the Minister's interference with the council even more than Dumbledore."

"And Amelia is well respected by nearly everyone," Harry added. "She's untouchable."

"Castlereagh's not going to like that," Ginny said, grinning. "She's going to get away with this without a worry."

"Maybe she'll be able to convince some other members of the Wizengamot as well," Lydia mused.

"I won't hold out much hope with that bunch," Harry commented.

"Never give up hope," Lydia said, giving Harry a meaningful look. "Being pessimistic is not something that I'm prepared to do at this point. We've come this far already, and that's more than I ever thought would happen, so who could tell where this will lead to in the end?"

Harry's eyes fitted between Lydia's penetrating gaze and Luna, who looked at the former with an admiration that he'd never seen before from her.

Ginny cleared her throat, and the moment was broken. "So, Luna," she said. "You've been to Hogwarts today, haven't you?"

"Oh yes," she replied, and the twinkle in her eyes dimmed. "Yes, I've been speaking to Hagrid lately, because there seems to be something going on inside the Forbidden Forest."

"Oh?" Harry asked. "Did he mention any specifics?"

"Well, he hasn't seen a Thestral for a few weeks now," Luna said. "Hagrid thinks they've gone deeper into the forest, which is unusual, because they normally stay near Hogwarts. He hasn't seen any Unicorns either. He thinks the Centaurs know what's going on, but they won't tell him anything more specific than their prediction: _"Aries is unusually red these days."_ But neither he nor I know what that means."

There was a short pause.

"Strange," Ginny commented.

"Yeah," Luna said. "I've written down what Hagrid told me and sent it to Aimé Bonpland, my correspondent in Paraguay, but it'll take a while for me to get a reply from him. He's quite isolated, you see. Letters take a long time to reach him."

Harry grew distracted as the conversation went on. The mention of Hogwarts and Hagrid made him realise that he missed it. He'd visited the castle from time to time before all this had happened, and he wanted to go there again to see Hagrid, Neville (who was teaching Herbology there), but most of all he missed his Godson. He wanted to see him again, or at least write him and tell him that he was alright, yet he could do neither of those things.

Ginny's inquisitive stare brought him back to the present. He looked at her, then at Lydia and Luna, who were deep in conversation about Bonpland and how he happened to end up living in rural Paraguay. He looked back at Ginny and nodded at the corridor.

"What's on your mind?" she asked him as they entered the corridor and he closed the door behind them. "You looked a million miles away back there."

"I miss Teddy," he said without preamble. He ran his hands through his hair. "I still feel so bad for dragging him into the Forbidden Forest that night, and I want to talk about it with him, but I can't, and it's so incredibly frustrating to be a Floo call away from him." He sighed and looked away. "I know I can't write him either, because any hint of me being in contact with him will only draw the Ministry's attention to him, and the last thing I want now is to bring him into the fold as well."

Ginny opened her arms and pulled him into a hug.

"It doesn't solve anything if I tell you he's doing very well, does it?" she asked, as Harry leaned his chin on her shoulder.

"Not really," he sighed. "I still don't know how to thank you for what you've done for him while I was gone, though."

"I do appreciate your attempts to thank me, though." They drew back and shared a knowing smile.

"But how about this, then?" she continued in a more energetic tone. "As soon as we've dealt with Castlereagh, we'll go to Hogwarts and get you to talk with Teddy. It'll be the very first thing we do. Damn the rest."

"Agreed," he said. She smiled despite himself. "That's really the only thing we can do about this at the moment, I suppose."

"It is," she said. "Teddy will understand that it's impossible right now."

Harry nodded. There really was nothing more to be done about it.

* * *

The next day brought more news on the forms, and Lord Castlereagh proved to be without mercy. Everyone who had failed to correctly sign their form, was fired. People who had used the form to draw on it or let loose their frustration against the administration, were fired. Even the people who had simply forgotten it, people who were ill yesterday, and people who had any other good reason to be unable to meet the deadline, were fired, despite their pleas and protests. And the entire front page of the _Daily Prophet_ (Harry's hands shook with barely restrained fury as he read through it) consisted of a list of all the Ministry employees who had been laid off. _"THE TRAITORS"_ was the headline. The accompanied picture showed Amelia Bones, who looked irritated at being photographed. Her refusal to step down as a member of the Wizengamot seemed only to attract more ire from Lord Castlereagh's administration.

"This can't go on for much longer," Harry said to Ginny, his voice shaking, his breakfast in front of him forgotten in the anger. "One-hundred and seventy-eight people lost their jobs in one fell swoop! Who's going to replace them? What will happen to them and their families now that they've lost their income?"

"With any hope, they'll take to the streets as well," Ginny said.

"And who even believes this nonsense?" he raged on. "Look at that headline! It's absolutely ridiculous! Whatever does that man have against me that makes him so zealous?"

"I don't know, Harry," she said softly, squeezing his shoulder. "Don't forget your breakfast, love."

But Harry was no longer hungry. He shook off her comforting hand, veered up, and marched out of the room. He wanted to get out, go for a walk, a run, anything that would shake off this frustration. But he couldn't. There was a stupid guard outside their front door, and their fireplace was being monitored. He was trapped. Locked inside. For too long already.

He marched past the master bedroom, past Lydia's room, all the way upstairs to the attic. He wanted to rage, to let loose his anger through his magic and take it out on the piles of old rubbish that were dusting away here. A small rational part of him told him it would not be wise to do that inside his own house. But he was past that restraint.

He lashed out and kicked at a nearby box. It turned out to be filled with books and was a lot heavier than he expected, and he jumped around on one leg, cursing loudly as he clutched his sore toe.

The pain had the opposite effect of calming him down and in his rage he whipped out his wand and sent a curse at the damned box. Gone was the fear, the trauma of using his wand to cast spells. The anger burned that away. There was a loud _crack_ and all that was left of the box was a pile of ash. He looked around and saw more books, and the thin vestiges of control in him snapped. He sent curse after curse at the bookshelves, blowing book after book to smithereens. Pages billowed up in the incessant waves of magic and twirled down around him. There was only a brief spark, a memory flashing by of that fateful evening in the Forbidden Forest, but he sent those white-hot emotions out through his wand, and a tendril of fire hot enough to singe his fingertips blasted several more books to ash.

He was sick of it all. Sick of what was done to him for something he was not to blame for.

He spat out an explosive spell. The child's doll he'd practiced on with the Elder Wand, was blown to bits, its head rolling over the wooden floor in a grotesque manner, its eyes roving around madly as it spun away to a dark corner.

He and Kingsley had done so much to root out the toxic waste of past Ministry administrations, only to be blamed and punished for the mess that they were trying to clean up. Kingsley was rotting in Azkaban, and Harry was rotting here, in his own home, after being exiled for a year and a half.

Another curse, and a wooden doll house was wiped away in a most satisfying way, with wooden walls, small chairs, tables and dolls flying everywhere.

A reckless part of him wanted to Floo into the Ministry right now to march up to the Minister's office to personally escort the man to Azkaban, but he knew that was impossible. But it would happen soon, he was sure of it. Castlereagh's time was up, and it was time to plan how they were going to dispose of him in detail. And then… And what then?

He was so focused on the maelstrom of thoughts inside his head and making things around him explode, that he never noticed Ginny walk up the stairs behind him. Not until she snaked her arms around him from behind and laid her head against his back.

He froze, wand loosely held in his hand.

"It'll be okay, love," she murmured.

And all of a sudden, at that simple statement, all the anger left him. It rushed from him at every pore and left him with no strength left in his body. The wand clattered to the floor, and he sank down with it. Ginny sat down next to him and guided his head to her chest.

"I just want us to be together," he whispered. He began shaking, and tears pooled up in his closed eyes. "Just you and me, in a nice, quiet home, somewhere peaceful. And no one would harm us there. No meddling Ministry, no ghosts from the past trying to harm us again, and no Elder Wand to toy with us. I don't want this anymore. It's too much. I've had enough, I want it to be over so badly."

He drew a shuddering breath and threw his arms around her, clinging to her as he shook in sobs.

"It'll be over soon, love," she whispered. He felt her lips press down on the top of his head. "We're nearly there, you and I. And after we kick out Castlereagh, we will live that dream. I promise. You and me, in that peaceful house that you described."

He squeezed her tighter. Tears still streamed down his heated cheeks, but something had changed. His mind replayed the promise they'd made to each other over and over again, the realisation finally setting in that the dream that he dreamt would soon no longer be a distant, yearning fantasy.

He sniffed and drew himself up, wiping the last few tears from his eyes as he looked at Ginny, a smile spreading across his face.

"I want a cat," she whispered, her smile mirroring his. "And he has to be cuddly."

"We'll get a cat," he said with a watery grin, drawing her into a hug. "And a Quidditch pitch."

"Definitely," she murmured. "I wouldn't want our kids to grow up without a Quidditch pitch next to the house."

Harry froze as her words sunk down into him. And a glow, a delicious glow, spread through him, from the centre of his chest to the tips of his fingers.

"They'll be fantastic fliers," he whispered, drawing her back to kiss her on the lips. "With my talent, it's impossible for them not to be."

"Definitely," she laughed. " _Your_ talent, yes."

The laughter died on her lips as their eyes met.

"I love it when you look at me like that," Harry growled, and that was all the invitation she needed to push him on his back and press her lips to his.

* * *

The chaos at the Ministry was still in full swing when Hermione went to work that Thursday. Many departments suddenly found themselves without several staff members (the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee was entirely without staff) and it caused a general mood that ranged from confusion to outright panic. Especially the absence of the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee proved to be troublesome, as more and more anti-Castlereagh graffiti appeared all over London. Worse still, people seemed less bothered to uphold the Statute of Secrecy, and Hermione had a strong suspicion that it was a form of open defiance to the Minister. In the end the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes had to call in the help of Aurors and Hit Wizards when someone had set off an extra-large box of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes Fireworks in a DIY store somewhere in North-London. It was a good thing that George had won a court case a few years back where the Ministry tried to hold him responsible for the damage that his products caused. It was settled then that it was not his responsibility what people did with his products, and that sentence would certainly come in handy now.

In the pandemonium of people aimlessly milling around in the Ministry halls, she thought that no one would notice if she slipped off to the archives again. She was proven correct when she arrived at the Department of Mysteries without any questions asked, and the corridors here were, as per usual, abandoned. Again she opened the inconspicuous black door halfway down the corridor. And she froze in the doorway when she saw that the lights were on. There was movement to her right, and she slowly turned, her heart pounding in her throat.

Fabian Fletcher was there, leaning against the desk.

"Back again, Granger?"

"Auror Fletcher," she said in a constrained voice. She stepped inside with stiff legs. "What a coincidence!"

"Is it?" he asked softly, pushing himself back on two feet. "There's no point in trying to hide it, Granger. We've seen you, sneaking off during work, snooping around in these archives." He took a step towards her, but Hermione stood her ground. She glanced back briefly to make sure she was still near the door opening.

"What have you been looking for, Granger?" Fletcher asked, narrowing his eyes at her. She noticed then how tall he was, taller than Ron even.

"Would that be of pertinence to you, Auror Fletcher?" she asked. Her hands shook, but she kept her voice even.

"Your behaviour suggests that it is," he said. "Why didn't you ask for permission to search around the archives? Some of these documents here are fragile, and others… confidential."

"Auror Fletcher," Hermione replied, standing up straighter. She pointed at the unmanned desk that was littered with papers and boxes. "There's not really anyone to send that request to, despite my repeated insistence that we need a new staff member here."

"What is so urgent, then, that it could not wait for that new staff member to arrive?"

"Knowing the general competence of this Ministry, that would take at least two more years before that would happen," she said.

Fletcher's jaw tightened. She had to keep talking. "But to answer your question: it was just something to do with a House Elf case a while back. After that unfortunate murder of Binky at Hogwarts, I wanted to gather more cases of murdered House Elves. So that's what I've been doing here."

"I see," Fletcher said. "And what do the Auror records of Belfast in the late seventies have to do with that?"

"I…" Hermione began, but she stopped. It was as if her stomach had dropped through a trapdoor.

"You know, you really should be more careful to place everything you read back where it belongs," he continued in his soft voice. "You left a box on the floor. Sloppy, Granger, especially after your thorough attempts at hiding your research from us."

Hermione closed her eyes and breathed out before opening them again. "You've been spying on me, then?"

"We've kept a close eye on you, yes," he replied. "And I did really expect you to realise that we would keep tabs on everyone associated with Harry Potter."

"Of course you would," she said.

"I'm going to be _very_ clear with you, Granger," he said, taking another step towards her. She swallowed and looked up to meet his dark eyes. "There is _nothing_ in these archives that will help you in your search for… whatever it is that you're trying to unmask. The behaviour of Aurors during the first tyranny of You-Know-Who, regretful as it was, has already been dealt with, and you can read it in the Excess Notes. So unless you have anything else to do in here…?"

"No, there's plenty of other work to be done," she said, trembling more than she ever had done before. "Have a good day, Auror Fletcher." She heard him wish the same to her, but by that time she'd already turned around and walked out the door. The cold, deserted hallway felt a lot more threatening than it did just a minute ago. Just before turning the corner she looked back. Auror Fletcher closed the door to the archive, and then turned towards her, his cold, dark eyes meeting her gaze. She looked away and set off again, her heels clacking loudly in the black hallway as she sped towards the elevators, still feeling her neck itch at the memory of the Auror's gaze on her.

* * *

Ron and Rose were right there in the living room when she Flooed back home. She knew this, and that was why she schooled her expression and smiled brightly at the pair of them. Seeing her daughter's face light up as she noticed her made that feat much easier than she'd feared. Even when she noticed Rose had food all over her face and hands.

"Hello there, gorgeous!" she cried, crossing the living room to bend down and place a kiss on the top of Rose's head.

"And here I was, thinking that you were talking to me," Ron grumbled good-naturedly. He had been in the process of feeding Rose a mixture of peas and carrots. Much of the contents of the small bowl were spread out over the table of the high chair, and many of the peas had been squashed, presumably by Rose's swinging fists.

"Of course you're gorgeous as well," she mumbled. Ron looked up and she pressed her lips to his. "Is she eating well?"

Ron's smile slid off his face and he slowly gazed from Hermione to the mess of carrot and pea, and then back to her again.

"Well, don't let me interrupt you two, then," she said. "I'm going to put on something more comfortable." Just before exiting the living room, she turned back. Ron met her eye and she grimaced, finally showing to him how she really felt. He smiled back in sympathy and nodded. They would talk about this after Rose went to bed.

At eight o'clock, Rose had finally run out of steam. She'd played with Albert, then with her toy wand, and then she solved a cube puzzle (Hermione strongly suspected that in her frustration, she magically decreased the size of the blocks that she had to fit in the correct holes), until finally she started yawning and her eyes started drooping. Ron and Hermione carried her to bed, wished her goodnight, and then they retreated back downstairs.

Hermione sank down onto her favourite sofa, sighing deeply as she closed her eyes.

"What did you want to talk about, love?" Ron asked. "Did something happen at work?"

"It was absolute pandemonium, first of all," she mumbled, her eyes still closed. "Everything is in shambles, Ron. People don't know what to do because their colleagues have been fired, meanwhile the Statute of Secrecy is under serious risk of being breached with all the graffiti that's being painted all over the place. So I thought that I could sneak off in that chaos and look around in the archives again."

"And? Did you find anything?"

She opened her eyes and regaled what had happened there to Ron. His fists tightened during the story, and his ears reddened.

"Bastards," he said (Hermione admired how quickly he had learnt to swear more quietly now that they had Rose). "Of course I expected them to keep an eye out on us, but this… They've been full-on spying on you this whole time!"

"I don't want to go back to those archives," she said, her voice trembling. Ron stood up from his sofa and sat down next to her. She allowed his hand to snake around him, and she laid her head on his shoulder. "I was so afraid that he'd do something to me… I've been searching for anything, _anything_ that would even hint at something that happened to the family of Lord Castlereagh. But I've only come to realise that all the records of crimes committed by Aurors have all been erased from the archives. There's nothing there, and Fletcher told me as much as well. It's no use, and I'm only putting myself more at risk by continuing this search."

"Shh." Ron put a stop to her talking by laying a finger on her mouth. "I understand, and I'm sure that Harry and Ginny do as well."

"I hope so," she said, and with that she gave voice to a nagging thought that she had carried with her all this time, a thought that grew in strength as her search through the archives grew more and more futile. "I was afraid that they'd be angry with me for not finding anything. Especially Harry…"

"What do you mean?"

"He's been… intense, ever since he came back. There's something not right about him, Ron." She drew a deep breath, but she couldn't continue, she couldn't give word to the idea that lay there on the edge of her conscious thought.

"You're afraid he'll attack you again," Ron said softly. She stiffened, and he tightened his grip around her.

"I… I don't _want_ to. I know he wasn't himself when he did it, and that I scared him… But I still remember that day so clearly. Every detail of it, and…"

"But you still let him see Rosie," he said.

"If I didn't let him, he would never be able to forgive himself. If I denied him that, I would prove all his insecurities right, and he would never again be able to be himself around me… around us." Tears began to pool in her eyes. "I had my wand ready, when he was here," she whispered. "I don't think he saw it, but I didn't feel comfortable just introducing Rose to him like that without at least making sure that… That he wouldn't…"

Ron could say no more. She turned in his grasp and slid into his lap, clinging to him as more tears slid down her cheeks.


	21. Chapter 20

The next day, somewhere during breakfast, brought an abrupt end to the monotony.

"Oh!" Ginny exclaimed suddenly. Harry had been absentmindedly stroking Ginny's leg (he'd been unable to stop touching her after that spectacular night they'd had earlier that week) and drew his hand back quickly.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked her.

"No," she said, putting her hand in the pocket of her jeans and pulling out the galleon. "It's the galleon that Craig and I used to communicate as we were looking for you." She brought it close to her face to read it. _"Bucket of Blood, 5PM. Bring H."_ , she read, frowning. "Strange, you'd think we wouldn't have to meet anymore now that you're back."

"Yeah, strange," Harry repeated, staring at the galleon as she laid it back on the table.

"So for no discernible reason, this man wants to meet you, and he wants you to bring Harry as well?" Lydia asked, an eyebrow raised. "This sounds like the most obvious trap in the world."

"It does," Ginny said slowly. "But only Craig can use this galleon, and he's one of the last people I'd suspect of changing allegiance. The man hates Castlereagh and his goons."

"Maybe he was put under an Imperius Curse?" Lydia said.

"Craig can resist that," Harry said. "That's why I used him on the more dangerous missions."

"But I'm not too confident about this thing either, Harry," Ginny said. "It's so strange, so sudden."

"I understand," he said. "Can you ask him what it's about?"

"Already done."

His reply appeared on the surface of the coin soon after. _"Amelia wants talk"_ , it said. Then it made way for another sentence. _"Time for action against C."_

They exchanged significant looks.

"Well," Ginny began, "that's promising."

"It's brilliant, is what it is," Harry said, grinning. "I'd hoped Amelia would come to this conclusion, after all the work we did together in the past, but I didn't expect her to take the first step in this."

"Are you sure about this?" Lydia said, her eyes fitting between Harry and Ginny. "It seems a bit too coincidental to my taste."

"Yeah, I know," Ginny said. "Which is why I think we'll have to Apparate a fair distance away from the pub and approach it carefully. And if we think something's not okay, we leave immediately."

She met Harry's inquisitive gaze. "What?" she asked. "You tend to learn after inconspicuously searching for your wayward boyfriend for a year and a half."

Harry looked away.

"Magical traps are not that easily discovered, though," Lydia said, her brows furrowed.

"I've dealt with them plenty of times as an Auror," Harry said, shrugging. "We'll have to trust on that and Craig's integrity. It's all we can do at this moment, really."

"I'm still worried for you," Lydia said, her eyes solely directed at the galleon. "I've been part of a gang for nearly half my life and this is entirely the kind of stunt those people would pull." She sighed. "Just… be careful."

"We will be," Ginny promised.

* * *

Their worries proved to be unfounded, and around five o'clock that afternoon, they followed Craig into the pub, which was just starting to get a bit busier as people went in for a pint and grub after work.

"We've got a table at the back," he said as they walked past the bar. "It's good to see you alive and well, Harry."

"You too, Craig," Harry said. "And thank you for… everything."

They arrived at the back of the room and sitting there, at one of the tables against the wall, was Amelia Bones. She was wearing a black and tidy skirt and vest combination, which was her usual attire for occasions in the Muggle World, and for a moment Harry felt ashamed for being underdressed in his easy jeans and hoodie.

"Harry Potter," Amelia said, standing up to approach him. He noticed there was a lot more grey in her neatly tied-back hair than the last time he'd seen her. "I don't know how you manage to survive every situation you get yourself into."

"Ginny wanted me back home," Harry said, smiling at the woman who had been a sort of protégé for him within the department. "I knew better than to go against that."

Amelia's gaze shifted to Ginny.

"He can be smart from time to time," Ginny quipped.

"I've noticed," Amelia said, the corners of her mouth quirking up.

"Let's sit down," Craig interjected, arriving at the table with three pints.

"So what's the reason for all this?" Harry asked after they'd sat down.

"The arrest of Lord Castlereagh," Amelia said without preamble. Harry's grip on his glass tightened, and Ginny sat up straighter next to him.

"The Wizengamot is done with him, then?" Harry asked, looking straight at her.

"Not all of us," she said. "But enough of us. Just over two thirds, as a matter of fact. The stunt with the pledge of allegiance in the Ministry was the last drop, and our patience is up with him." She paused and regarded him. "Your name still holds a lot of sway," she said. "His stance regarding you was especially grievous in the eyes of the council. It also didn't help that he had several of our members interrogated, including me."

"He's out for conflict with everyone, isn't he?" Harry asked.

"Oh, yes, he is," Amelia said. "And that is an advantage to us, because it fits the image that you painted in your interview perfectly. We're convinced, and it's probably not far from the truth, that he's more out to destroy the Ministry than lead it. And that's why we see it as our duty to make sure that he is arrested before he can do more damage than he has done already."

"So where do we feature, then?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow at the woman.

"We need a good team of Aurors to arrest him, of course," she responded.

"Team?" he pressed.

"The old team has agreed to this already. They're ready when you are," Craig said.

Harry's gaze fitted between the two, and he sighed. "Even if I wanted to say no, it was not an option, was it?"

"We took the liberty of assuming you wouldn't," Craig said, a sly grin spreading over his face.

"Slytherin through and through, right, Craig?" Ginny asked.

"If we're done with this," Amelia interjected, tapping the table impatiently as she looked at Harry. "Are you in or not?"

Harry turned to Ginny. There was a mischievous twinkle in her eye as she nodded at him.

"Alright," he said, turning back to the woman across the table.

"Excellent!" Amelia replied. She reached underneath the table and produced a document so quickly that he was sure she'd had it ready the whole time.

It was an official-looking document, with the crest of the United Kingdom at the top, as well as the seal of the British Ministry For Magic. Underneath it stood, in large, cursive letters: _"DECLARATION FOR THE DISMISSAL OF THE MINISTER FOR MAGIC, LORD TRISTAN APOLLYON CASTLEREAGH"_ , and underneath that a long text specifying that he was to be dismissed and arrested on the basis of high treason against the Ministry, and for bringing the Statute of Secrecy into peril.

The document closed off with the names and signatures of a lot of Wizengamot members. Harry noticed, to his abject lack of surprise, that Malfoy's name was absent. Draco may have abstained from stirring trouble ever since his parents had left for France, but his voting habits within the Wizengamot showed Harry that much of his old bigotry was still there.

"You are to present this document to him, after which you arrest him for the reasons stated here," Amelia said. Again, there was a faint trace of amusement in her expression. "And… make sure to speak up, so that the journalists can hear it as well. You'll be accompanied by five competent and trustworthy Aurors, so there's no worry of him making his arrest difficult."

Harry swallowed. Now that the document was in front of him, it suddenly became all too real. It was as if he'd suddenly arrived at the edge of a cliff, and he was looking over the edge.

"What happens then, after the arrest?" he asked.

"I will fill in the interim position, as was agreed upon during the closed Wizengamot meeting," she said. "I have no intention of holding that position for longer than a few months. I'm getting too old for this, and we need someone young, someone from your generation, who is not part of the rotten establishment that has thwarted Kingsley so much."

Harry opened his mouth and was ready to retort, but she held up a hand to stop him. "I know you would never accept the job, Harry, and I won't ask you to. You'll get your place at the head of the Aurors back, unless I can finally convince you to step in as head of the DMLE. I'm talking, of course, about Hermione Granger. In all her years here, she has shown nothing but competence and integrity in the part of the Ministry where it's needed most, in that department of hers with the name I'm not going to pronounce. It's got to be her."

"Wow," Harry said, exchanging a glance with Ginny. "You sound very assured that she'll win the elections. The Wizengamot is not exactly the type of institution to favour the young and… erm… well, she's a woman, and she's Muggleborn."

Amelia sighed, and her stiff façade showed a crack. "I know," she said. "She'll have my vote, for starters, but it'll take a lot of campaigning to convince the others."

"And we'll be plastering my name all over it," Harry grumbled.

"That goes without saying." She surreptitiously pushed the declaration further towards him. "But that's something we'll plan out in more detail after Lord Castlereagh is dealt with."

"Yes, I think so too," Harry said. The amount of information being dumped on him was getting to him a bit. "When do you want us to do it?"

"I should think Monday morning is a good time."

"And what about Gawain Robards and his contingent of Aurors?"

"I've got the solution to that," Craig spoke up, draining the last of his beer and placing his glass back on the wooden table. "I've got a meeting with him tomorrow evening. He's been talking quite a bit to us Aurors, and the topic has always about you: "what sort of thing did Potter make you do?"; "what did Potter do about this case?"; "do you still have contact with Potter?"; that sort of thing. It's really tiring, normally, but it actually comes in handy today."

"How so?" Ginny asked.

"Well, it wouldn't be too disadvantageous to us if the Head Auror woke up this Monday with a bad hangover…" Craig said, smirking. "I know Robards cannot hold his drink as well as he used to, with his old age, but I also know he still loves his alcohol far too much for his own good. It won't be too difficult for me to make him drink himself into a stupor, is what I'm saying."

A grin spread across Harry's face. "Brilliant," he said. "That's that spot of bother out of the way."

"Pretty much all of them, really," Craig corrected him. "It's much more simple than you think it is, Harry. We gather in Leslie's house, we Floo into the Atrium one by one, make a bit of a show of it with our robes, march in formation, that sort of thing, and then it's just a procession to his office. He won't know what will hit him until it's too late. It'll go off without a hitch; I'm sure of it."

"I know, it sounds in order and all…" he sighed. "It's a big step, that's the thing. You can't just treat the arrest of the Minister for Magic like something light."  
"Lord Castlereagh did," Craig mentioned. "Right after he became Minister himself. Just marched straight into Kingsley's home and took him straight to Azkaban."

An image flashed in Harry's mind, of a monolithic column on a dark island, where Kingsley sat behind bars, his clothes ragged, his eyes wild and devoid of all the life that used to contain them before.

His grip on his beer glass tightened. "Alright, let's do the bastard in," he said. "How late do we gather at Leslie's place?"

"Eight in the morning sounds about in order."

"We'll be there," Harry said. "Unless, Ginny, you've got training, right?"

"I do…" she said. Her lips curled up in a smirk. "But I suppose I could come in a few hours later. The capture of the Minister for Magic sounds like a good enough reason. Let's alert Luna as well, by the way. She'll want to be there to write a report for The Quibbler."

"It sounds like everything is in order, then," Amelia said. She and Craig stood up at the same time. "No, keep seated for a while," she added when Harry and Ginny tried to follow suit. "We're nearly there, but we can't grow sloppy now. I've heard what happened to Hermione Granger and Auror Fabian Fletcher, and it shows that they really do have eyes everywhere. Stay here for a few more minutes, and then Apparate away at the courtyard behind the building. I'll see you on Monday."

"See you then," Harry said, his throat suddenly feeling a lot drier than it had done just before.

* * *

Sunday passed by in a nervous haze that seemed to drag on and on. The minutes crept by, and Harry either paced around the living room or went upstairs to the attic to pace there when Ginny got tired of his nervous antics. Ron and Hermione were there as well, as Rose always spent the Sundays with Molly and Arthur. Luna was there as well, but she and Lydia spent all afternoon upstairs in the library, and they refused to tell the others what they were up to there. Harry and Ginny shared knowing looks at that.

Then came dinner, and they spent the rest of the evening talking about things that went on in the outside world. At least it helped pass the time more quickly as Harry listened to Hermione tell him all about the many creative ways in which the Statute of Secrecy had been breached that week. He couldn't decide which incident was his favourite: the choir of singing lampposts in Devon, or the bins zooming around the streets of Reading in what appeared to be a series of street races.

But no matter how many stories and laughs they shared, Harry still noticed the tinge of nervousness in the air. He saw it in their eyes, especially Hermione's. He and Ginny had decided not to dally in telling her of Amelia's plans and she had taken the revelation in just about the way he'd come to expect from her. First, she had shouted at them that she was tired of all the secrets and surprises that they had for them. Second, she stopped talking to them and disappeared with Ron. Then by the end of the day, she had already started writing down possible ideas for what she'd want to achieve as Minister. Harry had a strong suspicion that this was not the first time she'd made such a list.

The clock ticked on, and it went dark outside. Then Luna stood up.

"I'd like to make a small announcement before we go to bed," she said. Not that she needed to, really; it was deathly quiet in the kitchen. "Lydia and I have been talking quite a lot lately about what we can do after this whole thing has calmed down."

"Basically," Lydia continued (to Harry, this looked like a well-rehearsed thing), "Considering my past, I don't think I've really got a future here in this country. For one, the Buckriders will always be after me. Even if you round most of them up, there will still be a few of them left to walk around freely, and the ones you did lock up won't stay in there forever. And if they see me, you know what will happen. And if that's not enough, there's also the matter of my criminal record."

Harry made to interrupt, but Lydia held up a hand to stop him. Luna took over again.

"That's why we've decided that Lydia will move in with my trusted correspondent in Paraguay, Aimé Bonpland."

"He already agreed to it," Lydia said with a watery smile. "He lives quite isolated, on a rural farm, and he's getting very old. I can help him there with his research and farmwork." She sniffed, and Harry felt tears pool in his eyes as well. "I'll be free."

She never looked happier than at that moment, and Harry breathed in deeply, his already volatile emotional state threatening to overpower him.

"I'll miss you," he said.

"You won't have to," Luna said with a serene smile. "I regularly go there during my travels, and you're welcome to accompany me. We'll be delighted to show you the Limpy Flimdingers in their natural habitat."

Harry shared a look with Ginny.

"Brilliant!" Ginny said, her eyes shining.

"D'you want to see the Limpy Flimdingers with me?" he asked her.

"If we have the time," she said, placing her hand on top of his. There was a challenging glint in her eye as he fingers traced patterns on the back of his hand. "We've got so much to do, you know: house hunting, spending time with Teddy, Quidditch, sorting out the Ministry…"

"We'll make it work," he vowed. He looked around the table. Ron looked completely at peace; Hermione smiled at him as tears rolled down her cheeks, all prior nervousness gone; Lydia rested her head on Luna's shoulder; Ginny regarded him with that blazing look. He thought he could burst with happiness. "All of us," he said. "It'll be okay."

They trickled off to bed one by one. Harry was only woken up once that night, when Ginny stirred next to him and mumbled something about her galleon heating up. Harry was awake and alert instantly, waiting to hear what she had to say about Craig and his meeting with Robards.

" _He's out cold,"_ she read.

"Fantastic," Harry muttered. He grabbed his watch from the nightstand to see what time it was. "It's 3 in the morning. I think Robards might not be of much use tomorrow morning."

Ginny giggled next to him. "Let's hope Craig didn't let himself go as well."

"I doubt that. The man is legendary with his drink," he said. He turned to his side to look at her. "So that –"

"No, Harry," she whispered, interrupting him. "If we're going to talk about it now, you'll be up all night."

"How do you know that?"

"I'm the resident Harry expert," she replied. "Now turn around."

Harry wanted to protest, but a look from her quelled his retort. He sighed and spun around until his back was towards her. He heard the rustling of bedcovers, and then she pressed herself against him. He felt her breasts, her stomach, her thighs and her legs, and her arm slipped around him. She kissed a particularly sensitive point in his neck.

"Now close your eyes," she whispered very close to his ear. "I'm here for you." Goosebumps spread over his skin, and a feeling of delicious warmth spread throughout his chest. She was much smaller than him, but he was amazed at how little that mattered, now that he was the little spoon for once. Peaceful sleep overcame him before he even realised it.

* * *

Harry rubbed the last vestiges of tiredness from his eyes, but his mind was already in full focus as he stood there in Leslie Proudfoot's small kitchen. The other Aurors – Claire Johnson, Craig Robertson, Aamir Ghezzal and Jordan Bennett – were there as well, as well as Ginny, Luna, Hermione and Ron. Lydia had stayed at home, and, considering that she would be arrested for gang activity and drug membership if she showed herself, Harry thought that was for the best.

"Right then," Proudfoot called, and the conversation around him came to a halt. "First of all, boss, welcome back to the team!" Cheers erupted around him, and Bennett slapped him on the back. "And to celebrate your return to the fold, you can take over this speech immediately and tell us what the plan is."

"Thanks Lesie," Harry said as the others laughed. "Right, the plan is very simple: we all Floo in to the Ministry. I'll go last, because we're fairly sure that we'll set off several alarm bells in important places once I use that connection. Then, when we're all there, we'll walk in formation – to make a show for the journalists," he added, nodding at Luna, who seemed more interested in the purple potted plants that Proudfoot had displayed on his windowsill, "… and then it's just a straight march to the Minister's office. Resistance should be minimal to non-existent, because the Hit Wizards are not on alert to defend the Ministry and the Head Auror is at this very moment sleeping off a very bad hangover. Good job on that, Craig."

"My pleasure," he replied with a tight grin.

"Once we enter the Minister's office," Harry continued, "we're to arrest Lord Castlereagh immediately for high treason. The quicker he is bound and without a wand, the better. We want this to go as smoothly as possible. Got that?"

The Aurors nodded.

"After we've disarmed and bound him, I will present him with this document right here," he opened his jacket to show them the roll of parchment that was stored in his inner pocket. "I will read it loudly to him, arrest him for high treason, and then we'll cart him off to Azkaban before his goons even know what is going on. And after that, it's Amelia's call what we'll do."

"Alright!" Proudfoot cried. "Let's go and bag ourselves a Minister!"

A loud cry of grim approval followed that statement.

Harry was the last to Floo into the Ministry. As soon as he stepped out of the fireplace, a loud shrill alarm sounded through the Ministry Atrium, and all the other fireplaces, including the one he just stepped through, were barred off with a loud _clang_.

"They had some tricks in place," Harry cried as conversation and movement drifted to a halt in the hallway and attention zeroed in on the group that just arrived. "Don't let the bells and whistles distract you. We've got work to do."

He marched forward, head held high, wand held tightly in his right hand, and to his left and right the other Aurors followed suit in a V-formation. Ginny, Hermione and Luna trailed behind. It was deathly silent in the Atrium as they marched through. All activity had come to a halt; the wizard in the wand- weighing booth froze, a ticket held loosely between his fingers; Ministry workers just passing through the hallway stopped to stare at the procession; even the memos seemed to flutter to a halt as the group of Aurors passed.

"That's Harry Potter!" someone whispered as they passed.

"What's happening… are those Aurors?"

"I see the robes."

"Where's the security? How can they just walk in like this?"

"I've heard that the Wizengamot are done with the Minister. Is this it?"

Harry felt his face heat up at all the attention drawn solely towards him, but Kingsley's lesson to never show the others how nervous you really are kicked in. He slowed down his breathing and channelled all the nervous energy into keeping his posture straight and forward. The days of wandering homeless and directionless through the country were over. The fog that had been in his head for so long, he realised now, was gone. He was himself again, and on a mission.

They arrived at the elevators. The queue there, consisting of Witches and Wizards of all sorts all gawking at him, dispersed, making room for them as an elevator rattled to a halt there at exactly the right time. They stepped in, and no one followed. The elevator scuttled into movement, and the surprised, awed faces of the Ministry workers quickly slipped from view.

Tense silence reigned in the elevator, and Harry kept his rigid posture, until Ginny wormed her way forward and she said: "Nice entrance, Potter."

Harry looked at her, saw that she was smirking at him, and his façade nearly cracked.

"Stay focused, you two," Hermione said in a muffled voice somewhere at the back of the elevator.

"Yes, madam," Harry replied, but she was right. The elevator arrived at level ten, the floor that was designated for affairs of the Minister. There was a small _ping_ and the doors rattled open. Harry and the others strode out, wand clearly visible in their hands.

Harry recognised the Minister's secretary; she was there as well when Kingsley used to sit here. But what was new, were the two bodyguards standing on either side of the ornamental wooden door that led to the Minister's office.

They never even had a chance to defend themselves as five simultaneous Stunning Spells were sent their way. Harry marched forward and ripped the door open. Lord Castlereagh stood inside, one hand on the desk, and the other clutching his wand. His eyes widened as he saw who entered.

"You!" he bellowed. Then the Aurors trooped into the room as well. "What is the meaning of all this? And what happened to my guards?"

"Lord Tristan Apollyon Castlereagh! In the name of the Wizengamot, you are under arrest for gross negligence and high treason against the Ministry of Magic," Harry spoke clearly. He paused briefly when the man raised his wand in his direction. "Try anything, and you'll regret it. It's five against one, and it will definitely not look good in the eyes of the judge if you resisted arrest."

"Where is Robards?" Lord Castlereagh demanded.

"He couldn't help himself and became blind drunk last night," Craig said. "He's still in bed, we think."

"It's over, Minister," Harry said, taking over again. He took the parchment from his inner pocket and handed it to the slack-jawed man standing across him. "The Wizengamot has decided your fate. You're out."

Lord Castlereagh unrolled it, and his eyes roved over the parchment, his hands shaking as he gripped it tightly.

And then, when his eyes reached the bottom of the pages, where the collection of signatures stood, all the tension left his body. He slumped back into his chair and his wand slipped from his hand, clattering down onto the desk. Harry took the parchment from his limp hands and stashed it away again. The man stared ahead, lost in his own world. Proudfoot and Ghezzal stepped around the desk and hoisted him up by his shoulders, which visibly took effort. And then he was bound and led out of the office.

Harry, walking next to him, heard him mumble under his breath as he hung his head.

"Mother, I'm sorry," he heard, over and over again as they walked back the same way they came. It was absolutely silent in the hallways, save for their footsteps, Lord Castlereagh's mutterings, and Luna's self-writing quill that zoomed over the pages.

It was as if time had stood still in the Atrium. Everyone had remained where they were. Only one group had now added to the crowd in the hallway: the Wizengamot. He saw them standing there, next to the fountain, wearing their traditional black robes and hat. Amelia stepped forward as Harry, Lord Castlereagh, and the others approached.

"Good work. Your part in this is almost done now," she said as they reached her. She patted his shoulder, which, Harry figured, must look awfully telling to the bystanders.

She then turned to the others next to Harry. "Aurors," she said in a brusque voice. "Escort this traitor to Azkaban, where he will be awaiting his trial."

"Yes, Madam Bones," Proudfoot said. "Right, _Lord_ , you're coming with us."

Harry watched them leave for a while, but then Amelia's arm, which still rested on his shoulder, pulled him away.

"Stand next to me as I address the Ministry," she muttered. Harry allowed himself to be guided towards the other members of the Wizengamot. He knew what she was doing. She was showing everyone that Harry had acted under her orders, and not the other way around. Part of him felt bitter for being treated as essentially a puppet for show, but he knew that this was necessary. And he trusted her.

A simple wooden elevated stage appeared in front of the fountain, and they climbed the steps to stand on it. He looked around the assembled crowd, and saw Ginny, Hermione and Luna standing near the front. He saw photographers worming their way in and out of the crowd, shooting as many pictures as they could of Harry and Amelia addressing the crowd in front of the fountain that was built to honour the defeat of Lord Voldemort. He saw countless confused and impressed Ministry workers, but he saw none of the resentment that the Wizarding World had shown him prior to his flight from it. He would never understand their fickleness.

And then Amelia spoke, telling them what had transpired, why Lord Castlereagh was arrested, how important Harry had been in all this (while skirting over the details of his disappearance and time spent with the Belfast gang), and that she would step in as interim Minister.

Harry knew that this was the kind of day that would end up in the history books, probably with a picture of this exact moment alongside it. But all he could think about was that he was free now, that he was no longer locked inside his own home, and that that meant that he could finally pay a visit that should have happened a long time ago. He sought out Ginny in the crowd. Their eyes met, and Harry nodded toward the end of the Atrium, where the Floos were. She smiled and nodded back.

Amelia ended her speech by asking the people to stop the unrest and promising that all Ministry workers that had been fired last week, would get their job back immediately.

"And let that be the first of many of Lord Castlereagh's decrees that we shall reverse!"

Applause broke out. It lasted for a long, very long, time and Harry was keenly aware of many people aiming their praise towards him as well. And then the clapping gradually died down, and the crowd that had gathered in the Atrium dispersed. People either turned to each other to discuss what had happened, or they rushed away, probably to tell friends, family, acquaintances, anyone, about this. And Harry, Amelia and the other members of the Wizengamot were approached by journalists who wanted to interview them.

Harry turned to Amelia, but she held up her hand to stop him before he could start talking.

"Just a little while longer," she said. "We will face the questions together, to show everyone that we are in this together, and then you can go. And I need to have a chat with the Muggle Prime Minister as well, sooner rather than later."

He swallowed but nodded. "Alright."

* * *

A few hours later found Harry pacing in the centre of the Headmistress' Office in Hogwarts. It had been straining to face the questions of not only journalists, but also other people from the Ministry who he occasionally saw in the hallways, who all wanted to know where he'd been, what had happened to him. He avoided the details and hoped that it would suffice to repeat what he'd said in the interview with The Quibbler: that he was deceived by Damien and subsequently tricked and trapped into a gang, before eventually escaping to return home again. It seemed to be enough, because the questions then turned to what Harry would do now that he was Head Auror once again.

"Set things right," was what he replied.

And eventually he could escape, after promising Amelia that he would see her at ten o'clock the next day. He then met up with Ginny and after a calming cup of tea back home, they Flooed to Hogwarts.

The last time he'd seen McGonagall was during the Yaxley murder cases, and they hadn't parted on good terms. But all that was forgotten when they had greeted each other just now with all of the usual warmth between them.

"You're making _me_ stressed as well," Ginny then said. Harry paused to glare at her, and then clenched his jaw and resumed his pacing. McGonagall had gone to fetch Teddy from Care for Magical Creatures, which left them alone in the office for the time being.

"Honestly, Harry, I'm going to join you in a moment if you don't stop."

"I'm just really nervous, Gin!" he bit out. "What if…"

But he trailed off when the door opened. In stepped McGonagall, followed by his godson, who froze in the doorway. Harry stopped pacing and gazed at him, drinking in the sight of him. His hair, which had turned a vivid red colour at the moment; brown eyes that looked so much like his father's; and he had grown so _tall_.

"Harry," he then stammered. That was when Harry's legs regained their functionality again, and he took two large strides across the room, and took his godson in his arms. Worry cut through him when Teddy didn't reciprocate the sentiment, but it was squashed as quickly as it came when he felt the boy's long arms wrap around him.

"I'm so sorry," Teddy then whispered. Harry pulled back and laid his hands on the side of his godson's face.

"You have nothing, _nothing_ to apologise for," he said, his voice gruff. "I'm sorry for taking you into the forest that night, and I'm sorry that you had to witness what you had to see there."

Teddy swallowed, and then nodded, casting his eyes downward. Harry took him back in his arms. It was all he could do at this moment.

"And I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner."

"S'ok."

"No, it's not," he said more harshly than he intended. Harry pulled back once more and took a deep breath as he saw Teddy's demure expression. "I love you very much." He swallowed. "I know I'm not your real father, Teddy, but I love you like my own son. Always have. And I may have done a poor job of showing that this past year and a half, but I promise you that it's a thing of the past."

Finally the boy looked up, his eyes widened, and Harry embraced him again and kissed his cheek. He hadn't done so in ages, even long before he'd fled. Teddy had been around eleven years old when he'd decided that affection between him and Harry was too uncool and that he was too grown up for those kind of things. Harry had accepted it as part of him growing up, but now that he saw how affected Teddy was at what had happened, he vowed that even if the boy thought he was too cool for love, he still had to know that his godfather loved him nonetheless.

They separated, and Harry was surprised when Ginny stepped in his place and drew Teddy into a hug as well.

"Hey, giant," she said softly. Harry saw clearly how Teddy closed his eyes and returned the hug, breathing out slowly.

He wasn't jealous, he realised. He knew that she'd been there for Teddy when Harry couldn't, but that thought, and the sight of their close bond, only gave him a warm feeling deep inside his chest that spread out in a wave, from his core to the tips of his fingers and toes.

"One moment, please, Potter." Harry turned around and faced Professor McGonagall. Her lined face had softened, and she almost smiled at him. "Hagrid has asked you if you could visit him later today."

"Of course, Professor," Harry said. "I'd love to."

"He'll be glad. But it's not just that he wants to see you again," she went on. "There is something very wrong in the Forbidden Forest, and considering what went on in there on the night you disappeared…" her gaze grew distant for a moment. Then she shook her head. "Anyway, he thought it would be best if you two could talk about it."

"Alright. Do you want to come with us as well? You were there as well that night, after all."

Her lips tightened at the recollection. "I'd like that, yes. But don't let me interrupt this, please. I'll be upstairs."

She took the small stone stairs to the upper level of the office, and Harry turned back to Teddy and Ginny.

"I read the interview in The Quibbler," Teddy began.

"Let's sit down first, shall we?" Harry said, pointing at the four simple straight-backed chairs that stood around a small coffee table next to the tall window overlooking the grounds.

"Right," he said when they were seated. "The interview. What do you want to know?"

"Everything," Teddy blurted out immediately. "Did you really join a gang?"

Harry exchanged a look with Ginny, and their hands found each other.

"Yes, I did," he said. He took a deep breath, squeezed Ginny's hand and told his godson an abridged version of the events that had transpired. He was starting to grow more comfortable with the story, but he found that he had more trouble with the less savoury details, especially when talking about them to Teddy. But mercifully he seemed to understand Harry's unease, and he didn't press the issue as much as he normally did when adults were not forthcoming with him.

Harry had been talking for nearly an hour when the story wound down to the most recent events after he'd come home again, and when he finished with Lord Castlereagh's arrest, he let out a breath and leaned back in the chair. That didn't say much, because this was Professor McGonagall's office, and she seemed to despise comfortable seating. The sun was getting lower on the horizon, and he guessed that it was around dinner time.

"So now you know," he said, clearing his sore throat.

"Wow," was Teddy's reply. "I…"

"You don't have to say anything," Harry said. He leaned forward and patted his knee. "I think it's important that you know what I went through. I'm not proud of what I've done, but I don't want to leave you in the dark with this. I know how awful that can be, and I don't want you to feel that as well."

"Thank you," Teddy said. Their eyes met, and Harry knew that he meant it.

Professor McGonagall then appeared again, offering them the option of having dinner here in the office, which they gladly accepted. She summoned a House Elf, who assembled a small banquet for them, and then she went down to the Great Hall to have dinner with the rest of the school.

"So what's this I hear about you learning to play Quidditch?" Harry asked in between spoonfuls of soup. Teddy and Ginny had gone for a steak, but Harry found that he still wasn't comfortable eating meat.

"Oh," Teddy said. He dropped his knife and fork. "Yeah, I…" He paused and exchanged a look with Ginny. Harry could do nothing but smile when he saw that he sat up straighter after that. "Yeah, Ginny taught me a lot," he said. "I didn't make the team this year, but next year I want to try out as a keeper."

"A keeper, eh?" Harry said. "That's an idea. You do have the length for it."

"That's what Ginny told me," he replied.

"And I _am_ a professional Quidditch player, after all," Ginny added. "I think my opinion holds a bit more sway than that of the _amateurs_." She stuck her tongue out at Harry.

"Careful," he said, raising an eyebrow. "I've been known to bite." Teddy chuckled, but Harry had made the joke before he realised the undertone of it, and he coughed as he choked on a bit of spit.

"Anyway," he quickly said, determined not to think about Anoushka now. "I've got an idea. Your next Hogsmeade weekend is coming up, isn't it? How about we spend that day together, just the three of us? And then you can show me what Ginny taught you on a broom."

"That sounds like an idea," Teddy said. Harry looked at Ginny for confirmation; the way she smiled at him sent flutters down his stomach.

There was a lull in the conversation and they turned back to their food. They spent the rest of the dinner talking about easier subjects like Teddy's classes and the chances of the Chudley Cannons not ending last in the league this year. Despite the straight-backed chair, Harry felt all the tension that he'd felt flow from him. Talk came easily, Teddy looked at ease around him, the food was good… In that moment of reflection, it seemed to him like it was time to put the troublesome period that they were now climbing out of behind them. What would come after this, he didn't know, but he knew that these two people here would be at the centre of it.

All too soon they were done with eating, and Teddy announced hesitantly that he still had some more homework to do.

"Thanks for seeing me," he said to him as they hugged.

"Of course," Harry replied. "And we'll see each other again before you know it. I promise."

Teddy then hugged Ginny, thanked Professor McGonagall, who had returned from the Great Hall, and then he was off, back to the Hufflepuff Common Room.

For a moment, the three remaining people stared at the door through which Teddy had disappeared. Then Harry cleared his throat and he turned to the Headmistress.

"You wanted to go to Hagrid with us, Professor?" he asked.

"Yes, indeed," she said. "Are you aware of the strange events in the Forbidden Forest lately?"

"Luna told me about it," he replied. "That the Thestrals had gone missing, I think?"

"Yes, and the Unicorns. And there's more, but I'll let Hagrid explain it. Maybe you can make more sense of it."

They exited the office and made their way through the corridors. They occasionally passed by a few students who were on their way back to their Common Room after dinner, and, like in the old days, they all stopped to stare as they saw Harry Potter pass by them. The awkward feeling of the children staring at them gave him a sudden burst of _déjà vu_ , and for a moment he could imagine himself as a young teenager again, still at Hogwarts.

They stepped out into the rapidly cooling evening. The sun approached the forested horizon, casting the heavens in a deep shade of red. Harry could smell the dew that was forming on the long grass, and the wind that brought with it the cold mountain air gave him goose bumps. They followed the dirt road through the castle grounds and quickly reached Hagrid's Hut. McGonagall knocked on the door, and moments later Hagrid appeared at the door. Harry only had a moment to notice that he had his crossbow in his hand and had quite a suspicious look in his eye. Then Hagrid noticed him, and Harry found himself wrapped in a bone-crushing hug that pushed all the air out of his lungs.

"Never though' I'd see yeh again, 'arry," Hagrid stammered. "Yeh've had me worried sick all this time."

They were ushered inside for a cup of tea. Harry and Ginny politely refused Hagrid's rock cakes, which had only grown more solid as the man got older, and Harry noticed that he didn't even offer Professor McGonagall one. Perhaps he was used to her refusal.

"We don' have the time now, but yeh'll tell me later on what yeh've been up ter while yeh was away, won' yeh?" he asked Harry.

"Definitely," he replied. "I'll stop by as soon as I can for a cup of tea and we'll catch up."

Hagrid beamed at him.

"But let's get down to business," Professor McGonagall cut across. "Hagrid, would you care to explain what has been happening lately?"

Hagrid's happy expression slid from his face. "It's been downrigh' scary to go into the Forbidden Forest lately," he said. "It started with a nasty fly infestation early in the spring. Far too early for that kind o' thing, I tell yeh. Normally I can jus' grab any carcasses and feed them ter the Hippogriffs, bu' that's no' the best idea if they're full o' maggots. Tha' doesn' usually happen tha' quickly after the animal has been killed. Bu' now even the animals tha' were freshly killed were full o' them."

Harry pushed the rock cakes a bit further away from him.

"Then the Thestrals started ter behave strangely. Restless all the time, ate less, tha' kind of thing. I don' think any of 'em 'ave even mated t'all this spring. An' on top of tha', since a few weeks they've disappeared entirely. I think they've gone deeper inter the forest, bu' I don' know why. The Unicorns 'ave all disappeared an' all. And it's, well…" he shook his massive head. "It's too quie' in the Forest. No birds, see? Normally it should be full o' them, bu' it's just silen', all the time."

"Luna told me the Centaurs know more than they're letting on," Harry said.

"Aye, they do. Been righ' bothersome trying ter get some more from them, because they don' think that us humans should interfere in their business." He shook his head. "Bloody arrogant mules, the lot o' them."

"And do you have any suspicions on what might be the cause of all this?" Harry asked.

"No idea," Hagrid said. He sighed. "It's like the forest is ill. Terribly ill."

"And since when did this start?"

"Well, since yeh've been back, really. Or maybe a week or so earlier."

Harry leaned back in his chair. There was something niggling in his unconscious brain, that had been there all the time, but he needn't consider it until now. And then it hit him.

"Ginny," he said. "Do you remember what we talked about with Yaxley?"

"Erm, yeah?" she said, furrowing her brows. "But to be honest, I haven't really considered him lately. We've been too busy with Lord Castlereagh."

"Right, but do you remember what he said to me before he pushed me off that boat? What the entire point was of him getting me out of that jail before the Ministry could get me?"

She stiffened, and he knew that the realisation hit her as well. "The Deathly Hallows… You don't think this has anything to do with that, do you?"

"I don't know," he said. "But it does make perfect sense. Everything that had to do with those blasted artefacts gets tainted. And the last remaining place of the Resurrection Stone, as far as we know, is in there."

"You think Corban Yaxley is behind all this?" Professor McGonagall interjected.

Harry sighed. The last time he'd acted on these suspicions regarding Yaxley, it had only ended in disaster. But he'd been right about them, hadn't he?

"It's likely," he said at length.

"It does seem logical that he'd have something to do with it," Ginny said. Harry clenched his jaw and squeezed her leg softly as a burst of affection rushed through him. The memory of all the disbelieving stares every time he'd mentioned the Death Eater were still fresh in his memory, but Ginny was there for him now.

"We could take a look at where I'd last left the Resurrection Stone," he proposed. "If it's still there, then I suppose we can rule out Yaxley as far as this is concerned."

"Tha' could be an idea," Hagrid said while Professor McGonagall looked outside to the darkening sky with a conflicted expression.

"Oh, very well, then," she said. "I'd say it's about time we take action with this. But as soon as we've determined whether that stone is still there or not, we're going back immediately. Understood?" She looked at each of them over her glasses, and for a moment he felt like a student again.

Harry pulled on his coat again with trepidation. A moment ago it had seemed like a good idea, but now he realised that he was going back to the place where _that_ had happened. They stepped outside and for a moment, as he looked at the dark shadows that were waiting for him underneath the canopy of the evergreens, he felt like running back inside, to the safe warmth of Hagrid's hut.

But then Ginny's hand slipped in his.

"It's not like last time, love," she whispered to him as they crossed the border of the forest, walking past the first rows of enormous trees. "I'm with you."

He squeezed her hand and kissed her cheek. "I love you."

"Do you know the way, Harry?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"Oh yeah," he said. "All too well."

Hagrid was right; it _was_ eerily quiet in the forest. Normally the deep dark woods would be filled with the sounds of birdsong, distant trampling hooves, and small rodents scuttering around on the forest floor. But there was none of that now. It was deathly quiet and even the trees seemed to be still, despite the breeze that rushed through the canopy, making the last rays of light that found their way through dance on the leafy ground.

"Ah, look here, I forgo' ter mention this," Hagrid said. They stopped and looked around to see him pointing at the trunk of an enormous beech tree. "See these these vines all over the trunk? Tha's no' mean' ter be here this much, bu' they're everywhere, the blasted things." Harry stepped closer and then saw the thin tendril-like plants that shot up all over the trunk, snaking up to the top, past the wide arms of the tree.

"They ruddy well suffocate the trees, they do," Hagrid grumbled. "If this goes on, the Forest won' nearly be as thick and dense by autumn as it is now." He shook his head. "The Forest is ill. An' we best be solving this as soon as possible, if we can."

"Let's carry on quickly, then," Ginny said. "It's getting dark quickly."

They set off again, Harry guiding them past a dead tree that lay on the floor, covered in dark green moss, and past a few pools of water that were nearly invisible due to the layer of algae that floated on the water. It was not much further now.

"Is it just me, or does it smell funny here?" Ginny then asked.

They stopped and looked around. Harry inhaled deeply and thought that she was right. It was subtle and unrecognisable, but there was something in the air that made it harder for them to breathe.

"You're right; something's wrong. This was not something that happened last time I got close to the Resurrection Stone," Harry said. "Everything got darker back then, and… Well, it's hard to explain, but it wasn't like this."

"Let's carry on quickly," Professor McGonagall said.

"We're nearly there. Just a few more minutes."

They walked on in tense silence. Harry still had a grip on Ginny's hand, but memories of that horrible night flooded back to him.

" _Look, see that clearing over there? That's where we need to go."_

" _I don't see a clearing," Teddy said, looking positively terrified now. "This place doesn't feel right at all."_

Harry shook his head.

"That clearing over there," he said, pointing to a spot further ahead where they could see a small circle in the forest where there were no trees, just leafy soil. "It should be over there."

He gripped Ginny's hand tightly. His legs trembled, his heart pounded in his chest.

" _Please, let go of me!" Teddy begged, trying to pry his hand loose._

" _Teddy, do not walk away from me," Harry warned._

"Compungo!" _Teddy called. The white light of the Stinging Jinx shot from his wand and hit Harry's hand. He hissed in pain, and Teddy yanked his hand free._

He realised that he'd stopped when Ginny tugged on his hand.

"Is everything okay?" she whispered to him.

"Yeah," he whispered back. "I just…" He shook his head. "Let's just get it over with."

She looked like she was about to protest that, but he nonetheless walked on, with Hagrid and Professor McGonagall in his wake.

They reached the clearing. The sun had gone down, and dusk rapidly made way for the dark of the night, even though they could see the setting sun shimmering through the trees in the distance.

"Tha' smell," Hagrid said. "There's something wrong here."

"It should be in the middle here," Harry said. _"Lumos!"_

He approached the centre, his wand lighting up the black soil and the tree trunks on the edge of the clearing. Then he kneeled down and looked around for anything that might hint at where the Stone might be.

But there was something wrong. He could find the Stone instinctively last time, but that feeling was absent now, perhaps because he didn't have the other two Hallows with him now.

" _Accio Resurrection Stone!"_ he called, but nothing came forth from within the soil. His voice echoed in the deep, silent forest.

"Harry?" Ginny hesitantly asked, her voice small.

"It's not here," he said. _"Accio!"_

"Harry, can you raise your wand?"

"Why?" he asked, looking around at her. Her eyes shone in his wandlight. Behind her, McGonagall and Hagrid looked on silently.

"Just do it, please, and quickly."

He furrowed his brows, but complied, keeping his eyes on Ginny as he stood up and raised his wand up. Her eyes widened.

"Professor McGonagall, Hagrid, do you see it as well?"

They stepped closer, and Hagrid mumbled something under his breath.

"What?" Harry asked, looking from his raised wand at them.

"It's smoke…" McGonagall whispered. "Of course… the odd smell…"

Harry looked around the clearing, and then saw it as well. The trees closest to them were all shrouded in something that he first took to be mist, but now that he thought about it, it looked much more like tongues of smoke that drifted past. He turned around to see if he could find the source of it, but saw nothing but the dark shadows of the enormous trees, and the setting sun behind them…

But it wasn't the setting sun, he realised.

"Gallopin' Gorgons," Hagrid cursed. "The Forest is on fire!"


	22. Chapter 21

" _Gallopin' Gorgons," Hagrid cursed. "The Forest is on fire!"_

* * *

No sooner had he said that than he set off, pushing past Ginny and then Harry as he stampeded towards the source of the orange glow. They followed him, but it was hard to keep up with the his enormous steps.

"Hagrid!" Professor McGonagall called, who despite her age seemed to have no trouble trampling through the forest like this. "Hagrid, perhaps we should go back! This is not safe."

"I wan' ter see how bad it is!" he shouted back. "And catch whoever the ruddy hell did this!"

"Harry!" Ginny said, slowing down to get next to him. "Whatever happens, we stay together."

"Whatever happens," he repeated. Their hands found each other for a moment, and then they ran on.

The temperature of the forest increased as they got closer to that faint orange glow in the distance.

"It doesn' look tha' big!" Hagrid shouted. "Maybe we can stop it before it really sets the Forest ablaze!"

"I don't know much about forest fires, but this seems like a bad idea," Harry said. But Hagrid would not stop. The air got thicker with smoke as they marched on, and Harry heard Ginny and Professor McGonagall's breathing become more laboured.

The trees here were, if possible, thicker than the others, Harry realised. Many of them were so wide that even Hagrid would not even come close to being able to wrap his arms around the trunk. The ground became more uneven with enormous roots that jutted out from the soil, sometimes reaching so high that they were forced to climb underneath the mossy arches that they formed in order to get closer to the strange fire. Tendrils of hanging moss grazed against his face like ghostly fingers.

"This part of the Forest is old, very old," McGonagall said. Even she, the Headmistress of Hogwarts, looked ill at ease here.

"I've never seen this part of the Forest," Harry said. His voice sounded muffled and he realised that it was not just the smoke that was making the air denser; the trees themselves seemed to suck the very air from their surroundings.

"It feels like we're not supposed to be here," Ginny said softly. It seemed strangely appropriate to lower their voice here, in the presence of the monstrously large trees that dwarfed even Hagrid as he marched on ahead of them. It was hard for them to keep up with him, as the foliage here was a lot denser as well than their surroundings, and snaking branches repeatedly gripped onto their clothes.

"Hagrid, slow down!" Ginny called.

Hagrid stopped, looked around, and then seemed to come back down to Earth again. He took a few steps back towards them again.

"Sorry 'bout tha'," he said. "S'pose we'll need ter work together to pu' this fire ou'."

"Indeed," McGonagall said. "But do you know where we are?"

"Prob'ly the oldes' par' of the forest," Hagrid said. "I never come even close to here I can avoid it. Only the Centaurs go 'ere sometimes, bu' tha's all I know 'bout this par'."

Harry could feel why. He felt infinitesimally small here, but there was something just beyond that seemed to pull him in, to entice him to go further into the heart of the Forest, where no human being seemed to ever have been before.

"We're getting close to the fire now," he said. "Let's go."

Hagrid led the way, but more slowly now, bending branches out of the way as they slowly trudged their way forward. The scarred bark of the trees they passed were lit up by the orange glow that grew stronger and stronger. The trees stood closer and closer together until Hagrid began to have trouble squeezing through between them. McGonagall couldn't keep up with them either as she repeatedly had to stop and cough because of the smoke. Harry and Ginny took charge. And then–

"I can see the fire now!" Ginny said. She pointed ahead, and Harry took a few steps towards her so that he could see through the narrow gap in the trees as well.

He saw a sliver of a clearing, a massive clearing, and in the middle of it stood an overwhelmingly large tree. Its trunk was impossibly wide, and its limbs stretched out to immense distances. And it was on fire. At the base lay a large pile of wood, and flames reached up from it, reaching the canopy where the fire spread out further. Several flames shot up into the sky, past the canopy, forming odd, tentacle-like tendrils that snaked around the edge of the clearing, rushing past the leaves and branches and leaving sparks and smaller flames behind there. And behind the ancient tree, on the other side of the clearing, he could see a shadow scuttering around. The hairs on his neck raised up in alert. A breeze rolled through, making the canopy high up above shiver in the wind, and a waft of sick heat reached them, watering his eyes as it drifted past him.

"C'mon, let's go see what this is all about," he said softly and he made to move again, but Ginny tugged on his arm.

"Wait for Hagrid and McGonagall," she whispered. Her eyes glittered in the glow of the fire. "What's the hurry?"

"What d'you mean?"

She hesitated. "I just… I have a bad feeling about this," she then said.

"Of course you do, there's a massive fire right over there that's threatening to turn the entire forest into ash!" he whispered back, his voice threatening to spill over into louder tones.

Ginny grabbed his other arm as well and forced him to face her.

"Harry, listen to yourself!" she said.

"What?!"

"You're not thinking straight, and I think it's because…"

But she never could finish that sentence. Just before Hagrid and McGonagall caught up with them, one of the flame tendrils grew impossibly large, and swept down like a whip, cutting through the leafy cover, snaking through the limbs of the trees, descending down upon them. He never had time to reach for his wand, and the flame wrapped itself around his middle and wrenched him backwards, towards the clearing. He saw Ginny's expression morph into one of shock, but she didn't let go of him. Their eyes met, and his arms closed around hers as well, and they held onto each other as they flew backwards, away from Hagrid and McGonagall.

They landed, roughly, on the soil, and the air was pushed from his lungs as Ginny fell on top of him.

They scrambled up, but before they could stand up and grab their wands, he heard a rough voice hoarsely cry: _"Incarcerous!"_ and they both found themselves bound tightly by ropes. Unable to move from his awkward kneeled pose, Harry slowly toppled sideways and came to rest with his head on the cold soil. He saw from his position how a ring of fire quickly spread around the clearing, and behind it he saw the giant silhouette of Hagrid.

"Those two will not stand in my way now, no, not even the halfbreed Giant and his thick skin," that same deathly voice said. "Meddlesome fools. Let's see what they'll do with _this_."

Part of the ring of fire grew larger and larger, and it latched onto the trees there, quickly setting them ablaze. And then it spread to the trees next to it, and those next to them as well. The inferno spread around the ancient trees at an impossibly fast rate, and Harry heard Hagrid's furious shout in the distance. A stab of fear shot through him.

 _Please don't let them be caught in that_ , he thought. It seemed a futile wish.

"Visitors," the voice muttered. "Unwanted, yes, they disturb us, father, but maybe… maybe this is a blessing in disguise."

"Are you alright?" he whispered to Ginny, who, judging by her breathing, was still close to him.

"Yeah. You?"

"I'll live. Who is this?"

"That's what I wanted to tell you, Harry. I think this is Yaxley!"

"They are whispering, father, whispering about me behind our backs." Harry heard footsteps coming closer to him, trampling leaves and branches on its way. He cringed as two careworn boots came into view. The black pantleg above it must have looked impeccable once, but there was not much left of it now but tattered pieces of cloth that barely concealed smudged, pale, wounded skin underneath, the leg hairs wet and clinging to the skin.

The man kneeled, and Harry heard the joints pop and groan, as if his body were an old, rusted machine. More ruined clothes came into view, two claw-like hands with filthy, long nails, withered hair, and then a face that would be burned into Harry's retina until his death.

Yaxley had undergone a change in the short time since they'd last seen each other; a horrible, monstrous metamorphosis. His face was wrinkled almost beyond recognition, the soft, cheesy skin looking like it was melting in the heat of the flames, leaving his mouth a shapeless black hole that let forth a deathly smell. His eyes were almost entirely red with blood that leaked from broken veins, and they faced in opposite directions. The few wisps of white hair that were left clung to his withered visage, and his back stuck out in a grotesque hunchback. How could he have degenerated so quickly?

"Harry Potter," the husk of a man wheezed. His mouth twitched and moved, and Harry realised that he must be smiling. "You look terrified! Ha! You should be!"

Harry's heart thumped in his chest as his gaze shifted from the man's face to what he held in one of his beastly hands.

"Yesss, the Elder Wand," Yaxley hissed. He stroked the wand with his other hand, and Harry saw that he could barely move his bent fingers anymore. "What a gift, what a gift… I've done things I could not have dreamed of before with this artefact. Well… You've gotten a little taste of its powers just now, oh yes. And I think your two companions are having fun with it as we speak. Ha! Oh, the terrible biting, scorching heat!"

"What are you doing here, Corban?" Harry asked, fighting to push down waves of intense nausea as the man breathed out close to his face.

The hole that was his mouth twitched in another twisted parody of a grin. "Magic, Harry. Magic that this world has not seen for centuries. And you two are about to witness it all unfold. Yes, you two will do perfectly. I wanted to snatch maybe a poor, itty Hogwarts student for this, but no need now, no need…"

"What are you going to do with us?"

"You'll see, you'll see…" His gaze then shifted to look behind Harry. "Or maybe she will, hmm?" He scuttled around Harry, out of his view, and he felt a rush of fury when he imagined him touching her, but he couldn't move; the ropes were too tight. "Yes, will you? Would you like to watch as I suck the life from his body before your eyes?"

"Don't touch me!" she cried.

"Silence!" Yaxley shouted, his voice getting more hoarse as his volume increased.

"What happened to you, Corban?" Harry asked. He had to distract the man, and then maybe…

"What happened to me?" Yaxley repeated. He marched back towards Harry and kneeled by his side again. "Do you mean this?" he demanded. He grabbed a few plucks of hair and pulled, and Harry watched on in morbid fascination as they simply came loose from his scalp without any trouble whatsoever. "Or my skin?" He raked his claws over his waxy face, drawing lines and leaving behind red stripes. Blood began to ooze from them, blood that was far too dark and that shone in the light of the inferno surrounding them. "Oh my, my, but it's been so awful here! I haven't slept since the day where I thought I'd finally killed you, just worked and talked and talked and worked. The books didn't lie when they said that the Wand was special, Harry." His doll-like eyes lit up in excitement. "I can see it in your eyes as well! You know that feeling, don't you? Of the wand whispering things in your ear… You want it back, don't you? Hah!"

He brought down his grotesque hand, there was a sharp flash of pain, and then Harry felt burning scratch marks on his cheek of where Yaxley had struck him.

"You can't! It's mine now, Harry. I took it, fair and square from you, and this Wand recognises me as its master. And now…" He spread his arms, and a strange shadow was cast around him, as if there was someone – or something – much larger standing behind him. "Now I am the Master of Death at last."

He whipped his head around towards the burning tree in the middle of the clearing.

"I know they're distracting me, father!" he said. Harry craned his neck but couldn't see anyone else there. Then it hit him. _Father_. His eyes widened.

"You've used the Resurrection Stone to bring back your father," Harry whispered.

Yaxley fixed his gaze on him again, and he cringed as he did so. "No, no, you've got it wrong! I _tried_ to bring him back, but he's not really here! I can talk, but not touch… And he's so far away, so distant, so ethereal!" But then he stopped cringing, and he raked his eyes over Harry's body. He felt goose bumps spread on his skin under the mans leering scrutiny. "But soon, my friend, we will remedy that. With this wand, I will perform what has been deemed impossible by generations of even the most gifted Wizards of our age! One life for another, Harry, and the Master of Death shall reverse the injustice that was wrought onto my family."

"That was what this was all about, wasn't it?" Harry asked. Despite his mounting fear, he had to keep talking. Maybe Hagrid and McGonagall would be able to do something…

"Oh, yes, you've connected the dots!" Yaxley's shapeless mouth twitched. "Oh, but it was so hard, and so gruelling! All I ever wanted was to have my father back, after he was taken away from me by you Aurors. But how? I searched for so long, so long, but even the Dark Lord had no answers for me." A strange green glow seemed to light up in his eyes and his incoherent madness started to make way for a manic energy. "And then you defeated him, and my mind was muddled. Sullied by lust for revenge against you. But how? How could I ever go up against the vanquisher of my Lord?"

His head then snapped back into the direction of the fire. "Yes, father! Yes, I'm going to make more haste!" he cried. He looked back at Harry, seemed to consider something, and then he waved his wand at him, and Harry was lifted up into the air. "Got to get everything ready now, yes. The fire must be fed and nourished," he murmured, walking towards the fire with Harry floating in the air in front of him. "It's so hungry, Harry. Look around us. Do you see it growing and growing?"

Harry looked away from Yaxley's grotesque appearance and gasped as he took in his surroundings. The ancient trees that used to enclose the clearing in a tight wall of wood and leaves, were now all succumbed in flames. The sky had turned red with the flames and sparks that violently shot up, burning branches shook heavily in heat-generated winds, and he could see no end to the fire further away. The ancient heart of the Forbidden Forest was burning.

And the oak that stood in the centre of the clearing was entirely ablaze, its mighty branches that spread out so far from the trunk all succumbed to the flames. There was hardly anything left of what once had been the oldest, largest tree in the woods.

Yaxley sat Harry down on the ground there, and then summoned Ginny towards them to seat her next to him. He took his and Ginny's wands, and snap them before their eyes. Harry watched the two broken pieces of his holly wand fall to the ground, landing in a patch of moss that had blackened in the heat.

Then Yaxley set to work, with Harry and Ginny watching on in a morbid parody of a play as he scuttled around the clearing, collecting fallen branches and placing them in a pile at the base of the tree.

"I couldn't confront you," he said, his voice carrying unnaturally far over the clearing. It was getting hotter and hotter here, and Harry felt his throat getting more and more parched. "You were too strong and too protected and I was just all on my own, isolated, broken, running away constantly to evade you and your Aurors."

He took something from his withered coat, something that looked eerily similar to the cadaver of some rodent, and he chucked it in the fire. There was a white flash-flame that emitted a shrieking sound that raised the necks on Harry's hair. Then Yaxley turned towards them. He bent over and pressed two fingers against Harry's temples. "I had to get inside your head if I wanted to do something against you. So I made that chit you were with shag another man." His blackened tongue slithered from his shapeless mouth and licked his thin lips. "I was right there, you know, watching it all unfold. And then I thought I had you. You were so lonely and sad… But oh, I was so blind back then! All I was out for was revenge! And I waited and waited for the opportune moment…"

He shifted his maddened gaze to Ginny. "But then _you_ entered his life again!" he said, stepping towards her. "I was so angry that all my work had been for nothing! _Nothing!_ " he screamed, his mouth close to Ginny's face. She closed her eyes and turned her head, grimacing.

"But then those Deathly Hallows," he said, continuing in a softer tone. "Julie spied on you, you know. She was in and out of your home all the time, and saw how you hid that Elder Wand from everyone so carefully. I couldn't believe it! It was as if a light had gone on inside of me, like it had done when the Dark Lord first approached me! Everything became clear to me, and I knew that I had to become the Master of Death. So I read, and I read, but so little information came to me. I knew that you had the Wand, and I suspected that you had the Invisibility Cloak as well. But where was the Resurrection Stone, then? I had to know. So I went to Hogwarts to try and search for it, and I almost got caught by that House Elf. Still no Hallows. I asked the wandmaker Ollivander, but he wouldn't tell me anything about the Hallows, no matter how many fingers of his I broke."

His head twisted around, and Harry heard a few vertebrae pop. " _Yes,_ father! I will!"

He turned back to the tree and started circling it, drawing complex patterns with the Elder Wand, and all the while murmuring incantations in languages that Harry didn't recognise. Occasionally he pulled more cadavers, or parts of them, from his coat pocket, dropping them into the fire and creating more of those morbid white flash flames.

The fire became more intense, and Harry felt the skin of his face singe from the heat. Yet even though they were in the midst of the raging fire, with trees burning all around them, they didn't burn alive. It was as if they were in a cocoon here, something inexplicable and beyond nature that sheltered them from most of the heat of the fire. And the burning branches and logs rained that down all around them seemed to avoid them as well. And as Yaxley continued to chant and feed the fire, Harry felt a different sensation underneath the heat and his mounting anxiety: it was a rushing in his ears, and something that pressed down onto him, as if there was an unnatural amount of pressure here. The very air seemed to thrum with mounting energy that pulsed from the ancient tree.

"And still I had to get the Wand from you as well. I ordered that girl to try and steal it from you, but she disobeyed me. Oh, the punishment…" Harry clenched his teeth and balled his fists in fury, but it was all he could do.

"And then suddenly, you and Shacklebolt offered me that deal!" He cackled. "Such an obvious trap, yes, but I played along very well, yes. That Unbreakable Vow? You actually believed that it had worked! Ha!" He paused and held out his left arm, and then he conjured a golden thread that snaked around his extended arm. "See? Magic! Smoke, light, and a few bangs, and everyone will believe you." His expression, shimmering in the dancing light of the flames, darkened. "But I still didn't have the Deathly Hallows. There was one last person who I could… interrogate. That Lovegood man. Everyone knows he always walks around with the sign of the Hallows around his neck. But he was uncooperative as well." Harry noticed that the immense tree was starting to lean more to the side. It wouldn't be long now before it would collapse.

"I was out of options, so I decided to chance it and go back to Hogwarts. And then it all made sense to me, where I should be going." He approached Harry again, his eyes emitting a strange, unnatural light. He reached out with a dirt and ash-covered finger and traced Harry's scar. He closed his eyes in disgust at the hard touch. "I had to go to the place where you should have died, in the Forbidden Forest. And before I could even begin my search, _you_ showed up, and led me directly to the Resurrection Stone! In my joy I didn't even consider going after you anymore!" He pulled on a chord that was hanging around his neck. It looked roughly made, and there were a few hairs sticking out here and there. And on the end of it hung – Harry's heart started beating faster and harder in his chest – the Resurrection Stone.

"I see it in your eyes," Yaxley said in his wheezy voice. "You understand, don't you? I could see my father again, after all those years, touch him, talk to him… Or so I thought." He grimaced and clawed with those brown nails of his at his face, leaving more red, dirt-specked traces. "He's here, but not fully. He's but an imprint, an echo. And when I embraced him, my hands felt nothing but cold, cold air… I spent many hours talking to him, wondering how I could solve this, until I read in one of the few books on the Deathly Hallows about a woman resurrecting her husband from the brink of death by exchanging her soul for his life, and I knew then that that was my only chance at solving this. Oh how long I've searched for the precise workings of this! I've put one of the Hogwarts students under the Imperius Curse and he has been providing me with all the ancient tomes on resurrection rituals that he could find. Most were useless to me, and so I travelled to Geneva, to where that woman allegedly resurrected her husband. Their mansion still stands to this day, you know, but it is completely in ruins. No Muggles will go near it due to the Muggle-repelling charms. And in the ruins I found a journal that belonged to the same woman that fairy tale talked about."

"Elisabeth?" Ginny whispered.

"Yes," he hissed, leering at her. "Elisabeth. The fairy tale comes close to the truth, except for one thing: all the things about that figure called Mephistopheles coming to her aid is all a lie. Whoever wrote down the story read too much Goethe, methinks. No, she did all of it herself. Quite where she got the knowledge of the precise workings of the ritual from is a mystery to me, but she procured the Invisibility Cloak and the Resurrection Stone, and then cast a ritual with them that is as old as time itself. A resurrection ritual. See?" He turned around and spread his mangled arms, as if to offer himself to the grand fire that rose with all its might above them. "From the ashes of the old, new life will rise." He turned back towards them and drew from his jacket an unremarkable-looking acorn and a vial that contained what looked like a small pile of dust. "After this tree is turned to ash, I shall plant this in its remains. I shall christen it with your blood, and then from his remains, my father shall rise again." He shook the vial, the dust inside it swirling around the tiny glass container.

"But she didn't reverse death," Ginny said softly. "You've read it as well: she didn't revive him, she just took him back from the brink of death. This won't work, Yaxley. Your father is dead."

Harry felt a jolt travel through him, and for a moment he was back in the Black Lake, raking the Elder Wand over Ginny's stomach to pull the bullets from her and bring her back from the brink of death.

Yaxley's cold, mirthless laughter brought him back to the present. "You think that you can still convince me? No, no, missy, your blood will flow tonight, and so will his. I've come too far, I've sacrificed too much."

And with that, he turned back to the burning tree in the centre of the clearing.

"It's not going to work," Ginny said to Harry.

"How do you know?"

"I have read far too much on the Deathly Hallows while you were away, Harry, and there have been a few instances of this kind of thing happening, but they were always about people who were still alive, but only barely. Including that fairy tale that he'd read about the Swiss man."

"But have you seen magic like this before?" Harry asked. "And do you feel it? That energy coming from the tree? There's something going on here that's far bigger than us."

"I feel it too," she said. She shivered against him. "I hope Hagrid and McGonagall are alright."

"Me too. But I don't know if they can help us here. They couldn't get through the edge of the clearing, and I don't see a way through the fire now anymore."

Ginny leaned against him.

"We're going to fight him to the end, Ginny," he said. He wanted to turn to her but couldn't. "If there's anything I've learnt, it's that nothing is set in stone when it comes to the future. I've lost count at how many times I was sure that I would lose everything… that I would never see you again. And still, despite all that, we ended up together again."

"I know," she said. "I never thought we'd be able to have a second chance together, and then we got back together…" She sniffed. "When I lost you, it just seemed to be a sort of… It just felt morbidly _right_ that it wasn't to be. And then you proved that wrong as well. And Harry…"

"Hmm?"

"Should we die here, then I'm glad that we're together at least."

"I love you."

"I love you too," she said.

He wanted to hold her, kiss her, show her through his affection that it was going to be alright, but his hands were tied. So he simply leaned against her. And yet, despite his words, it was hard to imagine everything turning out alright as he looked around and saw forest that seemed older than time itself burn down and collapse before his very eyes. And the tree at the centre of the clearing groaned under its own weight and leaned more and more to the side. The thrumming in his ears turned into a roar. His eardrums stung in the pressure and the wind picked up, tearing through the burning trees with vigour, casting flames high up to the sky. Harry shivered despite it being so hot here. He wanted to curl up and hide away from whatever it was that tore through this place, but he couldn't. He closed his eyes. This was magic at its rawest, tearing at the roots of the Earth. Harry was paralysed at the winds of pure energy that rushed through and past him. He hardly even felt Ginny next to him anymore, and he heard nothing but the roaring in his ears and, distantly, the groaning, creaking, shrieking sound of the mighty oak collapsing under its weight. The magical cocoon that protected them before, that sheltered them from all around them, was washed away as if it was nothing.

Ash was kicked up and washed over him in a wave of hot and filthy air, blocking his nostrils and making him retch and cough, and the Earth shook violently under the weight and the roots that were torn up, unearthed. Harry no longer felt himself. He no longer felt the ground underneath him. There was nothing anymore, it was all swept up and blown away in the earth-shattering torrents of magic, and all he was, was his frightened consciousness that was swept up in the violence like an insect tossed around in a summer-evening storm.

And through the chaos he heard a sharp, unearthly cry that cut through the noise. He cracked open one eye. The clearing was hardly visible in the clouds of ash and flame that were cast around by swirling torrents of magic-fed winds, but there, somewhere in the apocalyptic sight, he saw the crooked form of Yaxley. The last vestiges of humanity that had barely clung to him had finally left his husk of a body. He danced around in ecstasy, emitting hoarse cries of joy.

"I am the Master of Death!" he shrieked. "I have conquered nature itself! Father! You will come home at last!"

He pointed his wand up in the air. There was an almighty rumble, Yaxley was for a brief moment of time lit up by red light that seemed to protrude from the earth beneath him, and then a silvery light erupted from the Elder Wand. It shot up into the sky at a blistering pace and exploded in a blinding flash of light.

Monstrous clouds rushed in from all sides, and their black, porous texture seemed to boil, and they were cast in a dark red hue by the flame-fed glow of the forest fire. The magic-saturated clouds condensed in above them and were sucked into a vortex that spun around rapidly. The ash and flames that already whipped around wildly were only torn around even faster now, plucking at his clothes, blistering his exposed skin.

Yaxley shouted until his vocal chords were ripped apart. Harry could barely watch the intensity of it all, but then the man stopped shouting, and he hobbled quickly to Harry and Ginny, withdrawing a knife that glittered in the chaotic light of the flames. Harry noticed that the circle of fire that blocked the clearing was now gone, and there was nothing anymore that stopped the raging forest fire around them from spreading into the clearing itself.

"Death comes for you now," he growled. He flicked the Elder Wand and he and Ginny were lifted from the scorching ground, flying through the ash and flames towards the centre of the clearing. "I shall command it. I am above Death now."

Something did not like that. An ash-ridden surge of wind ripped through them, and he and Ginny were dropped to the ground. Yaxley grunted behind them.

"I will hurry, father!" he said. His voice warbled in discomfort. "Something is working against me! But it shall not stop the Master of Death now!"

He stepped around Harry and Ginny and produced the acorn from his tattered jacket again. He knelt before them and scratched a hole into the still glowing ash with his bare hands.

"I am your Master now," he said to the acorn. Another gust of wind tore through the desolate clearing. Harry's eyes fell on a small spark that travelled up from the felled tree that lay prone behind Yaxley. The ember danced in the stormy winds, swirling around in its many torrents, until it landed on one of the tatters of Yaxley's jacket. The spark found its home there and hungrily bit at the cloth around it, growing into a small flame.

Yaxley continued to dig the hole until he was satisfied with it, and then, with surprising tenderness, he laid the acorn in its warm nest. The flame on his back spread further and further, spurred on by the surges of wind, but he didn't notice it.

Yaxley stood up and fixed his gaze on him.

"And now," he said. "Now we bathe the seed in blood. One life for the other." He marched over to Harry, knife still in his hand. But he finally started to notice the flames on his back.

His grim expression morphed into one of shock, his unfocused eyes widened, and he emitted a shrill yell.

" _Aguamenti!"_ he cried. But the Elder Wand failed his master. No water came forth from the tip of his wand. The wand chooses the Wizard, and Yaxley had been deemed obsolete by whatever power it was that rushed through the rearing, fire-soaked forest.

"NO! _Aguamenti! AGUAMENTI!_ " It wouldn't happen, and the flames began to lick at his neck and the remaining strands of hair that were still there. "Please! Father! Please!" he cried to no avail. He dropped to the floor and rolled around, but the ash and glowing coal there only spread the fire further. He screamed and yelled, his voice gurgling more and more as he melted and burned away before their eyes, until he twitched for the last time.

And the man that had been Harry's shadow for nearly half his life was no more, his body rapidly consumed by the all-ending fire.

Harry didn't know how much time passed before he realised that the ropes that bound them were gone. But when he did, he shot up and pulled Ginny up with him.

"We have to get out of here!" she said, tugging on his arm. "The fire is spreading, and we can't Apparate without our wands!"

Harry didn't move. His eyes were drawn to the Elder Wand that lay in Yaxley's grasp. The man's hand wasn't consumed yet by the fire. The Wand was there for the taking. And the Invisibility Cloak and the Resurrection Stone were there as well, if they could still be rescued from the burning husk of what once had been a man.

"Harry, _no!_ " Ginny cried. She pulled on his arm again but he was frozen in indecision. The lingering tainted seed that the Wand had planted inside him whispered in his ear right as more chaotic winds swept around them, blowing unbearable heat from the fire into his face. The vortex of monstrous clouds hadn't dissipated, even though Yaxley had died, and the forest fire approached them on all sides, towering above them.

"We can mend our wands," he said, though it felt as if it wasn't him who was speaking. His voice seemed oddly distant and the words were ripped from his lips by the wind.

"What?"

"With the Elder Wand. I mended my wand earlier, after the War. We can do it again."

"Fuck the Elder Wand! We'll get ourselves new wands, okay? Now come with me, you idiot!"

Harry, overcome by a daze, allowed himself to be dragged with her a few steps, but as he was removed further from the Deathly Hallows, there was a sharp ache in his chest, as if a hook had sunk into his skin and was reeling him in.

He wrenched himself from Ginny's grasp and dove forward before she could catch him. He landed on the ground, and ash was kicked up around him. He reached out and slapped Yaxley's prone hand away. The Elder Wand would be in his possession again and all would be right. He closed his hand around the Wand.

But it no longer cold to the touch as it had been before. All his delirious expectations were swept away and the torrential winds kicked up once more, washing ash and sickening spark-saturated heat over him. The wand was hot in his grasp, far too hot, hotter than anything he'd ever felt, and he screamed as he felt his skin melt to the touch.

Yet he couldn't let go. His hand was not in his control anymore. The feeling of being a passenger in his own body flooded back to him in a sickening _déjà vu_. And the unbearable heat of the wand reached out with its scalding fingers, reaching, pulling beneath the melting flesh. His vision blurred, his breath was squeezed from him and didn't come back, and his consciousness faded in the intense pain. In the back of his head he heard more screaming, but he was disconnected from that. Everything was swept away on the wind. All he felt was the Wand and that link that used to travel from the wood, through his veins, into his chest. That ice-cold connection burned, it bubbled and cooked beneath his skin, writhing around like a wounded snake in its last vestiges of panicked death. And then it wrenched at his being, the hook tore loose, and the immaterial yet all-consuming thing that tethered the cursed artefact to his soul was torn from him. The constraining around his chest lifted and he could finally move again.

His hand flew open and the wand tumbled from his grasp right as Ginny pulled him back.

"What did you do that for, you idiot?!" she shouted in his ear. She was gasping in his ear.

"It's gone," Harry said in a blissful moment of clarity.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"The Elder Wand," he said. "It's… the link is gone."

"Well that's highly interesting and all, but we have to go now or we get burned to a crisp!" she said. "Now come _on_ , Potter!"

He shook his head and stood up with her. He glanced at Yaxley one last time, and then at his hand. His palm was blackened. But it was a worry for later.

"Where can we go?" he asked Ginny.

" _Finally!_ C'mon, there's one last part that's not burning yet!"

And then they were off. They left the clearing without looking back, through a part of the forest that was not entirely on fire yet, though Harry could see the flames already licking at the canopy here.

They scuttled away, but there was no way that they could outrun the fire through the maze of ancient trees. He looked back occasionally as they sped away, but the fire was always there, its innumerable writhing, flaming tendrils jumping from tree to tree like a predator on the hunt, rapidly catching up with them.

He didn't utter his fears to Ginny. He didn't have to; the look in her eye said enough, told him that she shared that same fear with him. They ran on, but the inevitable futility of their flight made time slow down to a surreal crawling pace.

"I don't think we're headed in the direction of Hogwarts," he said to Ginny, panting, but never breaking his stride. Trees cast in hellish hues passed by them. "Nor the Black Lake."

"Keep fucking running," she growled.

Harry shook his head and they sprinted on. The forest was getting less dense now, but that only meant that there was more oxygen for the fire to breathe in. Violent gusts of wind soared past them in all random directions as the forest was eaten alive by the fire behind them. He saw rodents, birds, bats, and larger creatures in the distance, all hierarchy of the forest forgotten as they all fled from the impending fire as one. He saw a large bird try to fly up above the ancient canopy, but it was then caught in a gust of swirling wind, and it was reeled in, sucked back into the inferno.

This was what the Centaurs were talking about, he thought. This was why the Thestrals and the unicorns fled. This was the end.

They were descending now, and they slowed down a touch out of fear, and Harry's stomach jolted in recognition. This was the valley that he had run into after last time. Images immediately detached from his unconscious brain and fought their way to the forefront of his thoughts, but he pushed them down.

"Ginny!" he breathed. "There is a lake at the bottom here!"

"How d'you…" she began, but then she shook his head. "Never mind, let's go!"

They slipped down further and further, but the fire caught up with them at last. The heat scorched their backs, the roaring became louder and louder in their ears. The lake shimmered in the red and orange light in the distance. Ginny shouted at him, but her words never reached him.

And then she cried as she tripped over a root, and she rolled past him, downhill, over the leafy soil. He slipped and slid towards her, stumbling to a halt next to her and pulling her on her feet. She swayed back and forth, completely disoriented by her fall. Harry snarled and simply pulled her up onto his back. Flames entered his vision on either side of him, and his legs burned with the extra weight on his back. Ginny's fists squeezed his jacket and she shouted something in his ear…

And then water splashed around his feet as he reached the edge of the lake. He hopped in further until he could hardly walk anymore, dumped Ginny into the water next to him, and they swam further until they were in the middle of the lake.

The immense sea of flames reached the edge of the lake as well, and quickly spread around it. The wind blew in all directions, embers rained down all around them, and they had to submerge every so often to douse them if they landed on them. But they were safe. He breathed out at last, oddly sweet-tasting water entering his mouth as he closed his eyes in relief. Ginny slipped her hand in his, and so they floated there, hand in hand, as they waited for the fire to pass.

* * *

Their feet found muddy ground at last, and they trudged the last bit out of the water, reaching the blackened edge of the lake.

There was nothing left. Everything they saw was laid to ash. Only a few scorched stumps remained, and the rest was all even, equal black. The ground crunched beneath their feet, and dark puffs of ash was kicked up with every step they took.

Ginny sniffed, and Harry felt his heart sink as well. The Forbidden Forest, as inhospitable as it had always been, had seemed so eternal, such an intrinsic part of Hogwarts. To think that the ancient woods were now gone, it was… incomprehensible.

"C'mon," he said softly. His voice sounded muffled. It was deathly silent. Nothing moved.

He reached out his left hand, which was incredibly wrinkled after spending such a long time in the water, and Ginny took it. He looked down at his right hand. The ash was now gone, but it only revealed a mess of white and red burn marks. There was nothing left of the palm of his hand.

"We'll ask Madam Pomfrey is she can do anything about it," Ginny said.

"I don't know if it will ever heal," he said. "Dittany can only do so much."

"We'll deal with that when we have to. Now let's go."

Time was of no meaning here, and their trek through the desolate landscape seemed to drag on forever. The air had a strange green hue to it, and they couldn't see far ahead, leaving them disoriented, lost. And they encountered not a single living thing. It was hard to see where they were going, and Harry only hoped that by going back roughly the way they came, they would eventually reach the castle grounds again. Surely the castle itself would have survived…

"Wait." Ginny's voice cut through the silence after what seemed like ages.

"What?"

"Shh! Listen!"

Harry stopped and pricked up his ears. Then – he heard it. Faint, muffled shouting that came from far away.

"D'you hear it?"

"Is that Hagrid?"

They stopped and listened again. This time it was unmistakable, and there was a second voice that joined them as well.

"McGonagall!" he shouted.

And then they were off, running into the direction of where the voices came from. And their silhouettes emerged from the green toxic hue, and before Harry knew it, he and Ginny were wrapped in Hagrid's trademark bone-crushing hugs.

"We thought you'd died!" Harry panted when he was released from Hagrid's grip.

"Wha' abou' yeh, then?" Hagrid said back, grinning from ear to ear. "How in the ruddy hell did yeh manage to survive?"

They launched into an abridged version of the tale of Yaxley's plan, their escape and subsequent rush into the lake.

"And what about you?" Harry then asked Hagrid and McGonagall.

"We had to Apparate out," she said in a shaky voice. We've alerted the other Professors and began to try to stop the fire immediately, but as you can see…" she gestured around the desolate landscape. "We didn't achieve much. We feared the worst for you two didn't appear from the fire."

"Professor McGonagall," Hagrid said. "Migh' we, erm… warn the others tha' they can stop searching?"

"Oh," she said. "Yes, of course." She flicked her wand a few times, and Patronuses shot into different directions, disappearing into the green, deathly fog. "Now, let's head back to the castle quickly. The less time we spend here, the better."

Hagrid bit back a chocked sob. "It's a tragedy…" he grumbled.

"I never thought the Forbidden Forest would be gone," Ginny said, her voice warbling with emotion. "It had seemed so…"

"Eternal," Harry said, blankly staring ahead at the desolate scene. "And just like that, it's gone."

"All the animals," Hagrid chocked out. He sniffed. "Mos' of 'em burn' ter a crisp, an' the ones who lef' los' their home."

They moved on in silence as more and more tears streamed down Hagrid's face. McGonagall reached out and patted his enormous arm, but she said nothing. And there really was nothing more to say. Hagrid's beard was full of specks of ash, making his hair seem even greyer than it already was, and for the first time in his life it dawned on Harry that Hagrid was aging. He wondered how old half-giants could get, but the thought of Hagrid aging and possibly dying soon brought about a wave of sadness that washed over him as intense as it was sudden, and he bit his lip as tears pooled in his eyes. It was childish of him, he thought, to be so shocked and scared at this, but Hagrid was his oldest friend, and when Harry thought of Hogwarts, he thought of the immense castle, but also the grounds that surrounded it, and Hagrid lumbering around in it, going in and out of the forest, growing immense pumpkins, teaching children Care for Magical Animals. But now the forest was gone, and a nasty part of Harry's mind was sure that it would mean that Hagrid would go soon as well.

"We're getting there," Hagrid eventually said, shaking Harry from his morbid thoughts.

He looked up, wiping the tears from his cheeks, and saw the silhouette of Hogwarts. The bright rays of light cast out by the rising sun behind it sharply contrasted the shape against the sky, which was still darkened by the deathly grey-green hue that the fire had cast out. To his left was only more death and destruction that went on until it disappeared in the thick, murky fog. But then he looked to his right and saw something that made him stop in his tracks.

The ash-ridden fog cleared for a moment as a breeze sighed past, and it momentarily revealed a perfect sun-strewn view of the Black Lake. The water, abundant with small waves cast around by the wind, glittered, the morning sun reflecting in sparks and pinpoints off the wavy surface. Before it, stretching from them all the way down to the lake, was only blackened earth. But behind it was a sea of green, reaching out into the horizon, crawling up the mountains that still hadn't lost all of their snow yet. The fire had not destroyed everything after all. The forest was still there, just as it always had been, basking in the rising spring sun. And it had never looked more beautiful to him.

Such was his surprise and awe at the stupefying sight that he sank to his knees just as Hagrid, McGonagall and Ginny joined him in watching the scene of beauty. He barely felt the sharp pieces of coal that stung his knees.

"I couldn' believe it if I didn' see it with me own eyes," Hagrid murmured. "I though' we'd los' everything…"

The words barely registered with Harry. His heart soared and blood rushed through his ears. Thoughts of death and decay had completely made way for a new realisation that shook him to the point of dizziness: Yaxley was dead, Lord Castlereagh was behind bars, he and Ginny were back together, and he was forgiven for what he'd done.

"It's over," he said. He looked up at his side. Her red hair, cast alight by the sun, had never looked more beautiful. He didn't say anything more, because he knew that he didn't need to. They both understood what this meant. The fear, grief and anger of the previous period was behind them, and the life that they'd imagined together could finally begin now.

He looked back at the scene before him, but his eyes were drawn downward, to a point on the ground just by his knee.

It was small, almost too small to see in the black soil, but still he saw it. It was a tiny seedling, sprouting up not a few millimetres from the soil, its tiny leaf not opened up to the world yet.

"Look," he simply said.

The others were silent for a moment as they gazed at the point where Harry was pointing it.

"Oh, bless its soul," Hagrid then murmured.

"It sprouted so quickly already?" he asked. "But how? The ground is still warm from the fire!"

Then he looked around and saw more green seedlings here and there. Saplings of plants and trees sprung up all around him, and it was like looking at stars in the night sky – the longer he looked, the more specks of green he saw.

"I knew tha' forests regrow migh'y quickly after a fire," Hagrid said, his voice gruff. "Bu' this?"

"Let's leave it to grow in peace, then," McGonagall said softly. "And hope that sooner or later we can call it a forest again."

They rose up again, and Harry couldn't help himself: he wrapped an arm around Ginny and drew her close. They moved on with lifted spirits.

* * *

And far away, in a warm bed of doused coals, the acorn that Yaxley had planted, broke out of its shell. The sapling grew quickly from the fertile soil, far more quickly than the innumerable trees and bushes around it. Soon it would crown the forest again, just as it had always done.

And next to it, at the base of the tree, lay forgotten the three Deathly Hallows. Harry, freed from their spell, never thought about them anymore. Ginny, glad to have her Harry back again, never mentioned them anymore.

And so they laid there, waiting, as they had always done, to latch onto their new host, who would arrive here, once upon a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little over three years ago, my writer's block finally ended. I was so happy at that, that I wrote a silly action novella that was basically a GTA 5 mission in the Harry Potter world. After publishing it, I asked the readers whether they were interested in a sequel. They were, and that spiralled into The Elder Tales. This was its final part.
> 
> I'd like to thank all the people who helped me with the writing and the editing process: Inareskai, Jenorama, Lawyer, and Vlaai. I would have gone mad somewhere in the planning stage or during editing without their help. I'd also like to thank the most active reviewers: Godricshelm, Bluest Witch, Bolshevikmuppet, and Yuan. Their words of encouragement have made my day brighter countless times. Finally I'd like to thank (of course) all the people who have read these fics. I hope you've enjoyed them, and I hope you'll all be on board for the next one!


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